SummerPIT talk by Wendy Mackay

Most participatory design techniques, including video brainstorming and video prototyping, are intended for the initial, exploratory phase of design, when the goal is to generate a variety of ideas and the scope remains relatively open. Less common are techniques intended for redesign, i.e. supporting critical evaluation and improvement of an existing design. Generative Walkthroughs offer a lightweight, step-by-step method for participatory design teams to deconstruct their initial video prototypes according to well-established socio-technical principles and to then redesign them by generating alternatives that better account for how human beings interact with technology in social settings. Team members with little or no social science background, usually users and programmers, are able to reconsider their designs in the light of established principles such as situated action, distributed cognition and co-adaptive systems. We have successfully employed generative walkthroughs in a variety of participatory design settings where it has both grounded and increased the creativity of the resulting designs.