Haochen Gao, Catherine Letondal, Sylvain Pauchet, Ines Di Loreto, Rob Vingerhoeds
With several planetary limits being exceeded, the problem of the sustainability of IT systems is becoming ever more urgent. From the outset, participatory design (PD) has encouraged end-users to take control of the design of the IT tools they are to use by fostering co-designing and collaborative prototyping, but we increasingly need to attend to the wider ecological and societal influence of the systems it helps create. Systemic design (SD) has been identified as an approach that makes it possible to address issues of strong sustainability by taking into account several scales in all their complexity. This paper therefore frames the methodological question of how participatory design of software tools and systemic design might be combined in a way that keeps participatory prototyping meaningful while bringing systemic concerns into the discussion. Building on Jones& van Patter’s four design levels, we discuss the use of PD tools usually meant for interventions at levels 1-2 for supporting levels 3-4 analyses. We identify two research gaps: (1) sustainability‑oriented PD rarely make use of SD tools, and (2) relevant SD representations for PD may be too abstract for end‑users immersed in contextual prototyping. An exploratory use case provides an initial probe. Five researchers co-created a prototype of a digital travel diary during a workshop and later revisited the concept analysing rebound effects and causal loops. The insights from these workshops show a potential to inform the design of future workshops where systemic prompts will be included from the start. We contribute two aspects: (1) a level‑based perspective that identifies research gaps with respect to methods and tools, and (2) a first exploration, based on a workshop, offering insights into emerging perspectives. Together, these findings outline next steps for developing systemic participatory prototyping at multiple scales.
Keywords: participatory design, systemic design, sustainability, human-computer-interaction, software tools, methodology