Outcomes we didn't expect: participant's shifting investment in graphic design
Abstract
A criticism of graphic design is that designers work intuitively, without knowing their audience. We report on a study in which childcare workers and designers jointly developed strategies to encourage low-chemical cleaning in childcare. The workers' inclusion in design sought to address the barriers and triggers to effective communication of cleaning principles to childcare workers across the sector. Participatory design (PD) is rarely used in graphic design. Indeed, we speculate that PD poses a specific challenge in graphic design since participation exposes prospective audience members to the messages to be communicated. In our study, designing immersed the childcare workers in the information for dissemination, prompting them to see designs targeting them as irrelevant and to nominate an audience of relief workers, children and parents as the target for design. Employing case study method, we explore the complex contextual and human factors that lead the childcare workers to no longer represent themselves in the PD process.
