Towards a Culturally Independent Participatory Design Method: Fusing Game Elements into the Design Process

Abstract

Historically, Participatory Design (PD) was introduced and applied in the Scandinavian and American context as a practical design method for collective creativity and stakeholder involvement. In this paper, by fusing game elements into PD, we suggest a first step towards a culturally independent PD method called the ICT Service Design Game to ease the prevailing concern that PD has limited applicability in other cultural settings. We conduct four experiments on ICT Service Design Game in Scandinavia and Asia to evaluate its feasibility. The experiments identify some differences in the PD process and the created Persona characteristics, probably due to cultural differences. Of more interestingly, despite these process differences, the game elements of our PD variant were found to promote the key values of PD in culturally diverse settings by stimulating idea creation and participation. Our experiments imply that the introduction of game elements allows PD to be effectively utilized in culturally diverse settings.

Full text

Towards a Culturally Independent Participatory Design Method
Fusing game elements into the design process
Mika Yasuoka
Interaction Design
IT University of Copenhagen
Copenhagen, Denmark
myj@itu.dk
Momoko Nakatani and Takehiko Ohno
Service Evolution Laboratories
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation
Kanagawa, Japan
{nakatani.momoko, ohno.takehiko}@lab.ntt.co.jp
Abstract— Historically, Participatory Design (PD) was
introduced and applied in the Scandinavian and American
context as a practical design method for collective creativity
and stakeholder involvement. In this paper, by fusing game
elements into PD, we suggest a first step towards a culturally
independent PD method called the ICT Service Design Game to
ease the prevailing concern that PD has limited applicability in
other cultural settings. We conduct four experiments on ICT
Service Design Game in Scandinavia and Asia to evaluate its
feasibility. The experiments identify some differences in the PD
process and the created Persona characteristics, probably due
to cultural differences. Of more interestingly, despite these
process differences, the game elements of our PD variant were
found to promote the key values of PD in culturally diverse
settings by stimulating idea creation and participation. Our
experiments imply that the introduction of game elements
allows PD to be effectively utilized in culturally diverse settings.
Design Methods, Participatory Design, Creativity, Culture
I. INTRODUCTION
Participatory Design (PD) was first introduced in
Scandinavia [e.g. 9] and North America [e.g.17] but its use
has remained rather limited. Although the root of the
Scandinavian PD is said to lie in ‘Democracy’ and ‘Equality’
[4, 12], currently PD has developed into a practical design
method that tries to promote collective creativity and
stakeholder involvement [e.g.,1, 3, 10, 19, 20].
Lately, PD has attracted attention in Asia and Africa,
areas with widely divergent cultures, largely because of
strong demand for collective creation and innovation in
groups, communities, and societies. To survive in the
competitive global market, it is increasingly critical for
companies to create attractive services and products by using
diverse resources. For tackling socially challenging
problems, it has been gradually recognized that diverse
stakeholders are required and active participation is essential
for optimal solutions [14, 16].
This paper creates a culturally independent variant of PD
through the fusion of game elements. Based on comparative
experiments in culturally different settings, this paper
attempts to argue that the use of game elements allows socio-
culturally different societies to effectively apply the PD
approach and benefit from its core ideas of collective
creativity and stakeholder involvement.
In the rest of the paper, first we exemplify why PD is not
currently well accepted in culturally disparate societies,
using Japan as an example. Next, our variant, the ICT
Service Design Game, is introduced as a culturally
independent PD method; experiments on our proposal are
detailed. We evaluate the cultural independency of the
proposal based on a preliminary analysis of our findings,
focusing on the acceptance of the proposal.
II. WHY GAME ELEMENTS?
Even though PD is recognized as a source of creativity,
its adaptation beyond Scandinavia has been scant. As shown
in recent work, strong correlations between socio-cultural
environment, design, and usability methods [e.g., 2,19]
hinder the use of PD methods by other cultures. It has been
postulated that PD methods contain cultural biases and
assumptions [11], and it might not be so simple to adapt such
culturally-specific methods to other socio-cultural settings in
spite of their potential value.
The historical trajectory of PD was explained in the
argument “the sociocultural background is given due
consideration [7].” Given these biases, some researchers and
practitioners questioned the use of PD in socio-culturally
different societies and organizations.
In fact, compared to the number of PD cases conducted
and reported from Scandinavia and North America, those
from Asia, South America and Africa [e.g., 15, 19, 20] are
quite limited. Some Japanese researchers argue for the
incompatibility of participatory methods in culturally
different societies, such as Japan1, due to a different social
value system and a different understanding of the concept,
‘Participation’. This concern has, to a large extent, prevented
practitioners from applying PD in socio-culturally disparate
societies, despite increased demand for participatory
activities [e.g. 3].
A. Three Assumptions of PD
The history of PD application evidences the
characteristics of PD, which are seemingly regarded as
fundamental prerequisites. To name a few, (a) Equality, (b)
Open discussion and (c) Commitment to participation. There
appear to be potential barriers to conducting PD in Japan.
1 Arguments are not yet available in English. ( DBT 
2009)
2013 International Conference on Culture and Computing
978-0-7695-5047-3/13 $26.00 © 2013 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/CultureComputing.2013.24
92

In Scandinavia, empowerment in the workplace toward
flat relations and equality was an original objective of the PD
movement [4,12]. Although this democratization perspective
has diminished in the current mainstream of PD theories and
practice, its importance for equal discussion through the PD
process is still valid. In contrast, Japan is a hierarchical
society where the distance between the top and the bottom of
an organization is great, and is a key barrier to the
introduction of PD to collective design activities. In spite of
the organization restructuring movements for flat structures
in the 90’s, power transfer and process reduction for flatness
remain a challenge in Japanese organizations2.
In Scandinavia, open discussion prevails in every corner
of society; at schools, offices, and public spaces [3]. In
Japan, on the other hand, openly expressed opinions in
formal meetings are not expected because of the social norm,
although they are not expressly prohibited. Even in occasions
targeting open discussions such as workshops, some have
difficulty in opening up to strangers or members with
different rank in a hierarchy.
It is generally agreed that the stakeholders’ commitment
to the PD process is of critical importance [10], since PD
must have the participants’ self-motivation and commitment
for participation. Especially in organizations where the
division of work is clear, people not only from Japan but also
from Scandinavia tend to be reluctant to support a PD
process beyond their work descriptions in spite of the
obvious benefits of PD activities to higher level processes
[3]. It is critical that stakeholders can benefit from
participation.
B. Design Game
The design game is one of the PD methods that allows
stakeholders to collectively design future services and
products, using a form of board games with the goals of
collective creativity and stakeholder involvement. To benefit
the most from the game, field materials from ethnographical
observations are collected and form game materials such as
cards and pieces. With such original tools, players can
ground their play in the real world easily and deepen their
understanding of the field as the game proceeds and the
design takes shape.
As discussed above, the value of PD resides in the
discussion processes realized by equality, open discussion
and commitment to participation. Thus, it is of critical
importance to reach a conclusion that all stakeholders are
satisfied with and contribute to, without being influenced by
a single authority or affected by a loud talker. However, it is
not always easy to realize equal participation in a group or to
overcome hierarchy in certain socio-cultural settings. A
series of design games, which were originally suggested to
empower workers, could be beneficial as well as practical
tools to overcome obstacles for participation and trigger
creative ideas, which current societies long for.
2 The well-known Kaizen and Tokyota approaches empower employees by
providing tools for bottom-up decision-making. However, these methods
do not alter the organizational hierarchy.
For example, ‘Layout kits’ is a game suggested by Ehn
[4], in which players set machines on a factory floor to
optimize layout. Players handle machine cards as a tool in
the game. The game lets shop floor workers participate in the
relocation of work stations. It contributes to their ownership
of and satisfaction with their work place. Brandt et al. [1]
suggested a series of design games – the user game, the
landscape game, the technology game and the scenario game
- for designing spaces. In these games, participants create a
persona, design an activity space, design shapes and
functions, and play use-scenarios, respectively. These games
facilitate the design process and contribute to collaboration
among cross-disciplinary design groups.
C. Game Elements for PD
We see potential in using game elements to overcome the
cultural obstacles implicit in PD. A game space provides PD
participants with another kind of space where ordinary life is
temporarily suspended and new roles are taken within the
game [8, 13]. Even in societies with strong hierarchy and
social norms, “the players can engage in behavior that might
be risky, uncomfortable, or even rude in their normal lives
[8]”. The rules of the game, which players must agree to
abide, break hierarchies and social norms. By introducing
rules, the game can provide equal participation possibilities,
otherwise impossible in the ordinary organizational settings.
Although the game provides a fictitious world, game tools
based on real world data keep players attached to reality. The
game tools hold information about the game and help players
to concentrate on the task. Furthermore, the game processes
allow the participants to be subsumed by the game world and
let them naturally commit to the task [1]. As such, games
make a difference by substituting for and freeing participants
from their real-world cultures without violating social norms
or hierarchies.
III. THE ICT SERVICE DESIGN GAME
Based on the design games suggested by Brandt [1], we
designed the ICT Service Design Game (the ICT game) as a
PD variant; its aim is to supporting the design process for
creating home ICT services. In contrast to previous studies
on design games, which aim at facilitating a user-centered
design process for cross-disciplinary design groups and
emphasize user involvement, our proposal focuses on
overcoming socio-cultural differences and emphasizes
collective creativity as well as participation.
A. Three Games
The ICT Game consists of three successive games that
should be played as a set. Considering the practical
constraints on stakeholders attending the games, our game
duration is limited to about 1-2 hours; 3-5 participants with
different backgrounds form a team and play a game together.
A game framework is constructed on a fictitious worldview,
a goal, and rules as restrictions [8, 13]. The main three rules
are (1) keep your turn (never skip your turn), (2) respect time
limits, and (3) play based on the provided data. During the
game, facilitators ensure that stakeholders follow the rules.
93

Game materials were prepared based on the real world
data from two main sources, ethnographic-inspired responses
of end-users and technology seeds. The data was collected
from an ethnographical study on five households of Danish
and Japanese potential users; couples around 30-40 years old
with children. The focus of the observations was ICT aspects
such as usage and attitudes. Ethnographical data has been
collected inside the houses since the ICT Game targeted the
creation home ICT services. Based on the collected
materials, tools for the three games such as 30-second video
clips, moment cards, technology cards, and LEGO pieces
were prepared. The video clips show target user’s activities
at home in 30 seconds and moment cards show a moment of
the video clips. Technology cards show technology seeds
from a research lab and LEGO blocks are equivalent tangible
artifacts. All cards are name-cade size picture cards (e.x. see
Fig.1). Although the game provides a fictitious world space,
the game tools, such as cards, pieces, and videos, are deeply
rooted in the real challenges and needs of end-users and
actual technology seeds from a research institution. Next we
describe the three games in detail.
1) The User Game
The first game is the user game. The user game should
create a fictitious user image, persona, by constructing a
person’s story based on real target user data collected from
the field. The game tools are the video clips and moment
cards.
The game starts by the cards being placed on the table.
The first player then picks five cards and watches the
equivalent 30 second video clips together with the group
members. After watching the five videos, the first player
makes a story based on the cards s/he selected. Then, s/he
places all five cards on the table in order and makes a title on
a sticky note reflecting the needs disclosed by the story. The
next player takes four other cards and overlaps her/his story
with the previous one, meaning that the second player must
use at least one card already placed on the table in the
previous turn. The game is over when all cards are used or
all team members agree that no new stories can be created.
Finally, the team fills out a persona sheet based on the stories
made. The persona sheet (Fig. 2) holds a few details such as
name, age, characteristics, family structure, job/income,
living area, hobby and attitudes toward things related to ICT
services.
2) The Service Game
The service game should design ICT services using
future technology for the persona created in the user game.
In this game, technology cards and LEGO blocs are used as
game tools (Fig.1).
The game is based on the persona’s needs found in the
persona game. The first player picks one technology card
and an equivalent LEGO block and makes a story of how the
persona will use the technology at home to challenge the first
prioritized needs defined before hand. The second player
picks another technology card and makes another story. The
game is over when all the needs are solved or time is up.
Finally, the team fills out a service sheet by picking or
combining stories created in the game. The team fills out a
service sheet by adding a few details about the service such
as service name, user needs fulfilled, when and where the
service is provided, service summary, and visualization of
the service.
Figure 1. Game Materials and a Service Sheet for the Service Game.
3) The Scenario Game
The scenario game should create use-scenarios where the
persona uses the ICT service in a future home. Describing
possible futures and enacting scenarios are known to
represent a multi-faceted design tool [1]. By acting,
stakeholders can simulate the targeted users’ experiences and
feelings, which can contribute to understanding challenges
and designing services and products [6, 18]. The experiences
from previous games are condensed, empathy for the users
and the use-situations is developed, and also the design
concept is elaborated while the players take on roles, create
scenarios, and act them out in physical space such as kitchen.
Figure 2. Output Examples (Persona Sheet and User scenario).
In this game, players create a design plot. The game uses
white sheets of paper and pens, and the persona and service
sheets created in the previous games (Fig. 1, 2). The first
player draws one initial scene in two minutes referring to the
sheets. Then, another player draws a successive story in
another two minutes. In this way, the team creates at least
two stories, each with 3-5 scenes. By drawing scenes in turn,
all participants will contribute a part to the whole story. In
the end, the team picks a team story. The created story is
used as a plot for acting. Team members will act out the
scenario and polish the team story until all members are
satisfied or time is out.
B. Four Experiments
For evaluating the cultural independence of the ICT
game, we conducted four experiments; two in Denmark and
two in Japan in different socio-cultural settings (See Table 1).
The experiment structure, the game materials and the game
settings were almost the same in the four settings except
94

some condition differences for playing games such as game
durations, caused by practical constraints.
TABLE I. FOUR EXPERIMENTS
Participants were carefully selected to reflect actual
service development environments. Each team consisted of
three to four participants from technology, marketing and
design backgrounds. While all participants in Denmark could
be potential end-users of the service, one participant in Japan
was an end-user and represented the potential target group.
Half of the participants represented small or middle size
organizational cultures with less hierarchy and the other half
represented large size organizational cultures with strong
hierarchy.
The theme of all experiments was the future ICT services
to be used in a household in three years (2015 or 2016). The
participants were requested to design future ICT services,
that benefited users’ daily life by supporting household
chores, promoting communication among family members,
and supporting enjoyable, beneficial and productive daily
life. The persona sheets had a few more detailed items such
as attitude towards household chores, attitude toward IT
services, attitude toward family communication, and attitude
toward raising children.
Three kinds of data were collected and analyzed using
both qualitative [5] and quantitative methods. Conversations
in the experiments were taped and transcribed. Persona and
service sheets created during the games and game outputs
were collected. Lastly, participants filled out two kinds of
questionnaires. One of them evaluated participation and
contribution level to the game, and the other analyzed shared
understanding of the team persona among team members.
Persona evaluations were scored from 0 to 5 to calculate the
correlations among team members.
IV. ANALYSIS
In this section, we analyze the results, focusing on the
differences and similarity observed in the experiments on the
ICT game from socio-cultural perspectives.
A. Personas – Approximately Similar, Details Different
In the persona game, participants constructed their
persona image step by step and the team settled on the same
image. In filling out the persona sheet, they reached
agreement easily without large disputes. Surprisingly, many
teams created personas with similar images (Table 2) i.e.
similar age (mostly 38 or 40 years old), profession
(housewives or women with part time jobs), family structure
(husband and at least two children), and low IT literacy and
usage. This was expected since the game materials were
created from the same category group with these
characteristics. Still, these results are meaningful as each
team created a persona that reflected the original user
category characteristics.
TABLE II. CREATED PERSONAS
Personas created in Denmark
DK1-A DK1-B DK2-A DK2-B
Age 35 40 38 38
Jobs House wife Part timer House wife House wife
Family Husband and
3 children
Husband
and 2
children
Husband and 3
children
Husband and
6 children
Charact
eristics
Passive, self
sacrifice Obedient Stressed, un-
happy, dutiful Messy, Bored
Personas created in Japan
JP1-A JP1-B JP1-C JP2-A JP2-B
A
g
e 38 38 38 38 38
Jobs House
wife
Full time
work
House
wife
House
wife
Part time
work
Family
Husband
and 4
children
Husband
and 2
children
Husband
and 2
children
Husband
and 2
children
Husband
and 2
children
Charact
eristics
Passive,
self
sacrifice
Obedient Ambitious
, Outdoor
Patient,
Family-
minded
Clumsy,
Care for
family
The correlations on persona characteristics among team
members were also high. For example, correlations among
JP2-A participants’ recognitions on their persona, were at
most 0.86 and on average 0.52, which shows that they held a
similar image of their persona.
While we observed several similarities among personas
from the four experiments, differences between Danish and
Japanese personas were visible such as in details of
characteristics, attitude toward household chores or toward
ICT. For example, all personas created in the Danish
experiments were negative woman, exhausted by household
chores and characterized as ‘passive and self sacrificing’ and
‘oppressed’ person. Although personas created in the
Japanese experiments also had negative aspects such as
‘short tempered’, their basic characteristics were positive
with aspects of ‘care for family’ and ‘ambitious’.
Furthermore, even though all teams shared the image of
‘Persona doesn’t like household chores’, the detailed image
on attitudes toward household chore were different. While
Danish personas exhibited strong tendency toward negative
attitudes such as ‘Just duty’, ‘Obligation’ and ‘Hate’,
Japanese personas had positive attitudes with ‘Conscious’
and ‘Pays attention to details’.
B. Service - Approximately Similar, Service Different
Through the technology game and the scenario game, all
nine teams created one future ICT service within the defined
game duration and despite the diversities of participants with
different socio-cultural backgrounds, all teams generated
surprisingly similar outputs as regards quality and quantity.
All suggested services similarly aim to make the personas
happy with new ICT services with advanced ubiquitous
functions and hardware. However, interestingly, the services
Denmark Japan
2012. August
2 Teams (A, B)
3 stakeholders (Engineer,
Marketing, Designer)
Small org. size
3 Teams (A, B, C)
4 stakeholders (End-user,
Engineer, Marketing, Designer)
Middle org. size
2013, January
2 Teams (A, B)
3 stakeholders (Engineer,
Marketing, Designer)
Varied org. size
2 Teams (A, B)
4 stakeholders (End-user,
Engineer, Marketing, Designer)
Varied org. size
95

were different although all teams used the same game
materials. Some services provide similar functions with
different seed technologies while other services were quite
distinctive, quite original to the authors. For example, JP1-A,
JP1-B, and DK1-A suggested cooking support services with
thin, flat, tablet devices with advanced interfaces. JP2-A also
offered a cooking support service but with an anime
character on the display that was manipulated by the persona
as a mother from a distance so that children could follow
cooking instructions easier.
We do not detail each service or their analyses in this
paper. In our preliminary analysis, ICT services and their
use-scenarios as deliverables of the game showed no
significant differences among the four experiments.
C. Similarity and Differences in Game Process
Participants played the games by following rules and
reached the goal without exceeding time or significant
detours. According to the questionnaire collected at the end
of the experiments, their satisfaction levels toward
attendance, collective creation, and output quality were
relatively high. Through the game process, the participants in
the four experiments gave opinions in equal amounts and
committed to the 1 to 1.5 day sessions in a proactive manner.
Looking at the outputs as the only evaluation criteria, PD
was, seemingly, applied in similar manner in the four
experiments due to the proposed changes. Participants from
hierarchical organizations followed rules and evidenced no
clear organizational impact on participation. However, a
detailed comparative analysis on communication in the
Danish and Japanese experiments suggests different
interpretations. First, although players in Japan kept their
turns following the game rule, some players often spoke out
his/her thoughts as if they were talking to her/him-self.
Listening to other players’ comments, s/he presented own
opinion at the end. They tended to ask for other’s implicit
approval of their thoughts as shown below. This informal
pre-negotiation before presenting an opinion was typical in
all sessions in the Japanese workshop.
End-User: I guess… (Checking others are nodding) Our persona is alone on
the way back home from work, or two if she is on the way back from
kindergarten. (mumble the end of the sentence)
Engineer: I guess she picks up her child and goes shopping on the way.
End-User: …checks update and realizes she needs milk.
Engineer: Doesn’t she check shopping lists in the morning, and in the
evening, she checks them with smart phone and knows what’s missing,
which connects to the next scene.
End-user: Yes, yes..(nodding)
(Author’s translation from original conversation in Japanese)
On the other hand, Danish teams tend to have another
challenge of intervention in the discussion process. When the
lead player was presenting his story, the other team members
sometimes intervened and tried to create stories for the
speaking player. In such cases, a team facilitator intervened
and gave the turn back to the speaker; such interjectors
tended to hold back by him/herself over time by paying more
attention to the rules. As such, facilitators often played
critical roles especially in the beginning of the game. In spite
of the need for intervention, the game rules made it easier for
facilitators to intervene and ensure that the participants kept
to the rules without degrading the mood or collaboration.
V. DISCUSSIONS
The experiments exemplified how the proposal was
applied differently and similarly in the context of culture in
spite of its well-defined procedures. In this section, we argue
how the ICT Service Design Game can overcome the
deficiencies of conventional PD methods when they are
applied in socially disparate cultures.
A. Fostering Stakeholder Involvement
The game space and rules such as (1) keep own turn, (2)
keep time limits, and (3) play based on the provided data, let
all participants have an equal say since they have to wait for
their own turn to tell their own stories. As such, participants
regardless of their socio-cultural background are active in the
game and offer their opinions to form the team results.
Because of rule (1), opinions of end-users who tend to be
in a weaker position in terms of hierarchy were heard and
given equal weight. Since end-users could provide insightful
ideas that others could not argue against, the end-users’
opinions often evaluated higher than the other suggestions.
Even when participants who were supposed to be passive
gave their opinions, the rule stopped his/her interruptions,
without creating personal tension, which could otherwise
lead to failure. When participants forgot the rules and no one
in the team objected, the facilitators as gatekeepers made
sure that the participants followed the rules.
By introducing game elements, our PD variant yielded
the benefits of including all stakeholders equally and opening
the table to discussions, reflecting opinions from different
perspectives evenly, and ensuring commitment to the design
process. The game elements ensure that the participants
follow the rules and roles without violating stakeholders’
social status.
B. Supporting Creativity
Recent work on intercultural collaboration has
demonstrated that diversity is a source of creativity [14, 16].
The intersection of knowledge is a source of innovative
thoughts and the deliberate construction of a group with
varied opinions can be beneficial for innovative service
creation, as long as opinions are equally represented in such
a group. In our experiments, the size of one team is three to
four professionals with varied knowledge backgrounds, such
as end-user, design professionals, business professionals and
engineers, since they can contribute from different angles.
The teams are designed to be small enough to let all
participants speak and large enough to have different points
of view represented.
As stakeholder involvement was harmonized by the
introduction of game elements, the variety provided by the
groups could be fully utilized. During the experiments,
participants often gave their opinions based on their
knowledge or experiences such as “as a engineer, I know the
function is feasible”, or “As a heavy user of this service…”.
End-users who tend to be in a weak social position in PD
also contributed to the design processes and others listened
96

carefully. Supported by the diversity among participants,
good conditions for collective creation were formed. As a
result, the service ideas generated covered a broad spectrum,
some of which went beyond the facilitators’ expectations.
We should note that not all suggested service ideas were
totally new, and not all functions were technically feasible in
3 years. For those reasons, it could be argued that the created
service ideas were not a good indicator of the power of
collective creativity. We note that service ideas are obviously
influenced by the game materials provided and the
worldview set as the game frame. Although in-depth
evaluations on generated services are required to determine
how well the method enhances creativity, many service ideas
are unique and exceed what one person could create by
him/herself and we saw some hints of the creativity that the
game can invoke.
VI. CONCLUSION
In this paper, we suggested a participatory design (PD)
variant, the ICT Service Design Game, aiming to support
collective creativity and stakeholder involvement by fusing
some game elements into the PD process to benefit societies
culturally disparate from the societies that created the PD
process. Our experiments showed that the variant generated
creative outputs and fostered participation. The game
elements with selected tools, defined as rules and goals in the
ICT Design Game, succeeded in ensuring that different
societies could received the same benefits of PD.
Our experiments also showed that different socio-cultural
groups interpreted the same data differently. Interestingly
though, by sharing negative persona images in one cultural
setting and positive persona images in another, each team
could reach a consensus and generate similar service outputs
in spite of the different personas.
This work has several limitations. First it is a challenge to
evaluate the quality of the services created. As a practical PD
variant, our method should yield useful service ideas, with
the potential for wide acceptance in the market. However, it
is difficult to accurately evaluate the success of an idea until
it is accepted by the market. Second it is a challenge to
separate the contributions of the game elements from those
of the facilitators. Although our PD method contributes to
the promotion of PD values regardless of cultural barriers,
we should not overlook the fact that that the facilitators’
contributions were strong in our experiments. Last but not
least, our experiments examined only two ethnic and
organizational perspectives. Although the two ethnic cultures
represent widely disparate societies, they can not be expect
to cover all possible differences.
There is a range of implications as to future research.
Analytical criteria on creative services, long term follow ups
of the suggested service ideas and additional processes to
convert the ideas into real market services will help to
evaluate the quality of the proposal. In addition to testing our
proposal in wider socio-cultural settings, designing a more
detailed game frame would also contribute by lessening the
need for facilitators.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We appreciate and thank the participants of these
experiments and data collection. This research was supported
by a grant from NTT Service Evolution Laboratories.
REFERENCES
[1] E. Brandt., J. Messter, “Facilitating Collaboration though Design
Game,” Proc. Participatory Design Conference, pp.121-130, 2004.
[2] T. Clemmensen, “Templates for Cross –Cultural Specific Usability
Testing”, International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, pp.
634-669, 2011.
[3] P. Dalsgaard, “Challenges of Participation in Large-Scale Public
Project”, Proc. PDC 2010, pp.21-30, 2010.
[4] P. Ehn, “Work-Oriented Design of Computer Artifacts”, Lawrence
Erlbaum, Hillsdale, 1989.
[5] K. A. Ericsson and H. A. Simon, “Protocol analysis: Verbal reports as
data” MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1993.
[6] A. Fleury, “Drawing and Acting as User Experience research Tools”,
Proc. APCHI 2012, pp.269-278, 2012.
[7] C. Floyd, W. M. Mehl, F. M. Reisin, G. Schmidt, and G. Wolf, “Out
of Scandinavia: Alternative Approaches to Software Design and
System Development,” Human-Computer Interaction, vol. 4, pp.
253–350, 1989.
[8] D. Gray, S. Brown and J. Macanufo, “Gamestorming – A play book
for innovators, rulebreakers, and changemakers”, O’reilly, 2010.
[9] J. Greenbaum and M. Kyng, “Design at Work: Cooperative Design of
Computer Systems”, Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ. 1991.
[10] J. Gulliksen, A. Lantz, and I. Boivie, “User centered Design –
Problems and Possibilities – A summary of the 1998 PDC & CSCW
workshop”, SIG CHI Bulletin, Vol. 31, No. 2, 1999.
[11] J. Iivari and N. Iivari, “The relationship between organizational
culture and the deployment of agile methods’. Information and
Software Technology 53, 5 509-520, 2011.
[12] F. Kensing, and J. Blomberg, “PD: issues and concerns”, Computer
Supported Cooperative Work, Vol. 7, 167–185. Kluwer Academic
Publishers, 1998.
[13] J. McGonigal, “Reality is broken, why games make us better and how
they can change the world”, 2011.
[14] S. Page, The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better
Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies. Princeton University Press,
2007.
[15] S.K. Puri, E. Byrne, J. L. Nhampossa, Z. B. Quraishy, “Contextuality
of participation in IS design: a developing country perspective” in
Proc. PDC 2004, ACM press 42- 52, 2004.
[16] K. Sawyer, Group Genius, Basic Books, 2007.
[17] D. Schuler, A. Namioka, “Participatory Design: Principles and
Practices”, CRC Press, 1993.
[18] S. Titta, K. Mehto, T. Kankainen, , Kantola, V., “Drama and user-
centered methods in design”, in Coleman, R. and Macdonald, A. ed.
Proc. International conference on inclusive design, pp.5-8, 2005.
[19] H. Winschiers, N. J. Bidwell and E. Blake, “Being Participated – A
Community Approach”, Proc. PDC 2010, pp.1-10, 2010.
[20] M. Yasuoka and R. Sakurai, “Out of Scandinavia – Adaptability of
Participatory Design in Culturally Distant Society” Proc. PDC 2012
vol.2, pp.21-24, 2012.
97