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Voices from the Margins

By Michael J. Muller
CPSR/Denver-Boulder

CPSR News Volume 12, Number 3: Summer 1994

The topic of participatory design in and of computer systems has received a great deal of attention recently, see, for example, the June 1993 of Communications of the ACM and Schuler's and Namioka's new book, Participatory Design: Principles and Practices (Erlbaum). Therefore, we thought that we should take a different approach in this issue of the Newsletter. Rather than repeat material from recent publications, or anticipate new successes that will appear at PDC'94, we agreed on the theme of "Voices from the Margins" of participatory design.

The four articles assembled here provide diverse perspectives of participatory work that is going on outside of the computer area. In the first article, Richard Hughes reviews labor history in the US with regard to employee participation in workplace decisions. He describes the historical choice points at which US labor made different decisions from those made by Scandinavian labor, explicitly giving over many workplace decisions to management. Richard also notes that US labor retained participatory interests in health and safety issues, and he provides case studies that area.

Cydney Pullman describes the work of the Labor Institute (New York NY US) in participatory curriculum development for unions and other employee organizations. She summarizes the successes of their program, and provides case studies. Cydney also describes their Small Group Activity Method, which may be of value to other organizations with similar goals. This and other resources are available from the Institute (see the end of Cydney's article for access to these resources).

Elsie Nisonen provides an account of the Women's Safety Audit program of METRAC (Metro Action Committee on Public Violence against Women and Children, Toronto Ontario Canada). Their approach works with a constituency that is usually not organized (in the sense of "organized labor"). It is deeply participatory: METRAC claims that women's life experiences have made them experts on the safety of urban and campus spaces, a kind of expertise that is unavailable to most architects and planners. The METRAC safety audit process facilitates women's analysis of proposed or actual urban spaces, with outcomes that improve safety for everyone. Elsie's article concludes with a list of resources that are available from METRAC.

Vicki O'Day analyzes participatory curriculum development in US education. As was the case with Elsie Nisonen's article, part of Vicki's focus is non-organized constituencies of the public education system. She describes two different approaches to community involvement, illustrating each with a historical example. As some readers of this Newsletter know, Vicki previously worked in the research organization of Hewlett Packard Laboratories, and has been contributing to CPSR's work for years (including an active role in PDC'92). Her article makes links between the participatory education movement and CPSR's more focal interest in participatory design of computer systems. Vicki's analysis is therefore a suitable conclusion to the "Voices from the Margins."

Inevitably, a collection of diverse pieces in limited space contains gaps. Readers of this issue of the Newsletter will notice these, and I hope that they will tell me what absences and omissions they found particularly important. In closing, I wanted to call attention to two failures on my part to recruit articles: First. there is nothing here about the participatory ergonomics movement of the Pacific Rim. Second, there is no contribution from the tradition of participatory action research. Readers interested in these topics might consult Noro and Imada [1] and Reason and Rowan [2], respectively.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I thank the authors for their courage in working for enhanced social justice and democracy, and for keeping faith in their efforts. I also thank them for their in diligence in the face of a somewhat undefined task for a somewhat undefined audience.

I thank Susan Dray, Joan Greenbaum, Andy Imada, and Sarah Kuhn for consultations regarding this issue of the Newsletter.

I thank Nikki Draper for the opportunity to work on this topic, and for her guidance throughout.

REFERENCES

[1] Noro, K., and Imada, A.S. (Eds.) (1991) (Eds.). Participatory Ergonomics. London: Taylor and Francis.

[2] Reason, P., and Rowan, J. (1981). Human Inquiry. A Sourcebook of New Paradigm Research. Chichester: Wiley.

Michael J. Muller, U S WEST Technologies, 4001 Discovery Drive, Boulder CO, 80303, 303-541- 6564 (voice), 303-541-6003 or -8182 (fax), michael@advtech.uswest.com or muller.chi@xerox.com

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