Participatory Design & Health Information Technology

Book Preface

Designing Health Information Technology (HIT) is complex and calls for a range of activities to learn how best to provide technology support for future users and use situations. The importance of engaging end users like health professionals, patients and relatives in design processes is widely acknowledged. However, creating cooperative learning processes with future HIT users is not a simple task. Software is an abstract material, which challenges the involvement of non-professional designers. Participatory Design (PD) is the primary discipline for direct involvement of people in technology design. Since the 1970s PD researchers and professionals have established a broad repertoire of methods and techniques for PD within multiple domains in cooperation with a diversity of people. Exploring applications of PD in HIT is of value to researchers, health professionals, and designers involved in the endeavor of engaging end users in HIT design.

This book has contributions from renowned and experienced researchers from five countries, who share their experience and insight in conducting PD in their research and development of HIT. The book includes a review of PD and HIT research followed by 10 papers each providing a PD example and lessons learned of importance to future participatory HIT designers. All papers present a specific case of participatory HIT design, an extended argumentation and presentation of PD methods in relation to the presented health design case and lessons learned about PD in relation to HIT. The papers are organized in the following themes:

• Participatory Processes: This section includes three papers presenting long term PD processes of HIT development, implementation and appropriation.
• Participatory Reflections: This section includes two papers presenting critical analysis of PD processes related to HIT design and implementation.
• Participatory Business: This section includes two papers presenting business oriented PD with attention to PD of marketable HIT and effects-driven PD.
• Participatory Inspiration: This section presents three papers with participatory inspiration for HIT designers. The three papers present examples of multisite ethnography as a basis for HIT design; workshops with vulnerable participants for design of virtual rehabilitation; and transect walks as a first step in establishing participation for HIT design in neighborhoods.

The target audiences for the book are researchers, students, health professionals, and IT specialists who work with and/or are interested in supporting participation in design of HIT. The ambition is to inspire readers to conduct and reflect on participationin HIT design and further develop participatory approaches for design of future HIT.