A technique for designing and implementing applications whereby, early on in the design phase, you include on the development team end users as well as knowledge experts. See also rapid prototyping and goal-based design.

a variant of user-centered design that emphasizes the direct involvement of users in analysis and design activities

The symmetry of ignorance makes participatory design a necessity. - R: Cross-Cultural Communication

A methodology which involves consumers at the heart of the design process.

a democratic approach to design that encourages participation in the design process by a wide variety of stakeholders, such as: designers, developers, management, users, customers, salespeople, distributors, etc. The approach stresses making users not simply the subjects of user testing, but actually empowering them to be a part of the design and decision-making process.

Participatory design is an approach to design that attempts to actively involve the end users in the design process to help ensure that the product designed meets their needs and is usable. It is rooted in work with trade unions in several Scandinavian countries in the 1960s and 1970s; its ancestry also includes Action research and Sociotechnical Design.http://cpsr.org/issues/pd/ Web Page on Participatory Design on the site of CPSR. Accessed 13 April 2006.