Knowledge Creation in a Participatory Design Context: The use of Empathetic Participatory Design

摘要

The growth and penetration of Internet across developing countries has led to availability of a plethora of ICT applications. Quite often, potential users of these applications hold varying perceptions, both negative and positive, in respect of potential usefulness. This in turn, results into variations in adoption outcomes. The extant literature posits that 80% of user perceptions are negative while only 20% of their perceptions towards available ICT application are positive. The negative perceptions inevitably results in low adoption or at times even non?adoption of applications, which then remain under or un?utilized. This paper reports on a participatory action research study, which explores how ICT application adoption may be enhanced through ‘empathetic participatory design’ as a method for creating knowledge that may have meaningful application utility. This is achieved through user behavioural simulation. The main mode of data collection and analysis was the repertory grid technique used to elicit constructs from simulated prototyped elements of a selection of applications. In this paper, the knowledge creation process involves the use of design scenarios and use?cases from the typical users’ point of view during co?problem discovery and scoping in respect of problems identified by the user community. The findings of this paper reveal that a co?design approach results in reflective experiences, that create a hybridity of knowledge which is both tacit and explicit, reciprocating each other to enrich the design outcomes of the applications. We argue that knowledge is not only a belief of knowing and thinking but rather has the ability to be transformed into real action. The paper posits that tacit and explicit forms of knowledge are inextricably linked and that knowledge is created and expanded through social interaction between tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge using modes and methods of ‘knowledge conversion’.