Rosenverse

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

A Typology of Participation in Participatory Research

Gold
Tuesday, March 28, 2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Share the love for this talk
A Typology of Participation in Participatory Research
Speakers: Sarah Fathallah
Link:

Summary

This talk aims to unpack the notion of participation used in participatory design research, by proposing a framework through which different levels of participation can occur at different stages of the research process. Drawing examples of work in child welfare and foster care, this framework is ultimately an invitation to challenge the notion that participation is binary (i.e., either research is participatory or isn't) or fixed (i.e., there is only one way participation can be done). Instead, participation is a negotiation that should take into account different factors (e.g., partners, resources, timeline), and could include a combination of different levels at different stages in any given research study.

Key Insights

  • Participation in research should be viewed as a continuum across different stages and degrees, not a binary or single ladder.

  • Arnstein's ladder of participation, while influential, oversimplifies participation by focusing mainly on power transfer and neglecting safety, well-being, and other goals.

  • The spiral model of participatory action research adds a temporal dimension emphasizing ongoing reflection and participant feedback throughout the project.

  • Meaningful participation requires more than just involving people; it demands trauma-responsiveness, safety, mutuality, compensation, and avoiding tokenism.

  • Mapping degrees and sites of participation creates diverse assemblies unique to each research project, highlighting complexity and flexibility.

  • Involving people with lived experience as research team members enhances study design, recruitment, data interpretation, and dissemination.

  • External academic peer review can exert power that conflicts with participatory research goals, so forming a lived expert review board can rebalance power.

  • Metrics quantifying the quantity of participation (e.g., number of sessions or participants) risk misrepresenting the quality and ethics of engagement.

  • Longitudinal research with foster youth faces ethical and practical challenges, especially around consent and developmental readiness, often limiting study scope.

  • Participation should be considered an ethical commitment, but it must be complemented by care ethics and trauma-informed practices to avoid harm.

Notable Quotes

"Youth, families, and communities impacted by the child welfare system experience a lot of loss of control, with important aspects of their lives decided without their input."

"Participation is one way to minimize loss of control and allow people to exercise their agency and autonomy."

"Arnstein’s ladder reduces participation to delegating decision-making power, ignoring goals like safety, well-being, and satisfaction."

"The spiral model introduces temporality—constantly going back to participants to confirm outcomes align with goals."

"Instead of asking if research is participatory or not, we should ask when and how participatory the research is."

"Participatory research doesn’t inherently prevent harm or power differentials; it just engages more people in the process."

"Just because you do more sessions or add review moments doesn’t mean the quality of engagement improves."

"We formed a lived expert review board to support framing conclusions and decisions, rebalancing power from academic peer reviewers."

"Many ethical and practical issues prevent us from conducting longitudinal research with children under 18 in foster care."

"Participation is an ethical commitment but should be complemented by an ethic of care, valuing people’s time and being trauma responsive."

Ask the Rosenbot
Uday Gajendar
10 Years of Enterprise UX: Reflecting on the community and the practice
2025 • Enterprise Community
Mila Kuznetsova
How Lessons Learned from Our Youngest Users Can Help Us Evolve our Practices
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Abbey Smalley
Scaling UX Past the Size of Your Team
2024 • Enterprise Experience 2020
Gold
Alan Williams
Designing essential financial services for those in need
2022 • Civic Design Community
Lija Hogan
Practical Principles of Inclusive Research
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Erin Weigel
UX Lessons from running more than 1,200 A/B Tests
2024 • Rosenfeld Community
Bria Alexander
Theme Two Intro
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Joshua Graves
We Need To Talk: Managing Ludicrous Requests at Work (Part 3 of 3)
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Noz Urbina
Rapid AI-powered UX (RAUX): A framework for empowering human designers
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Erin May
Distributed, Democratized, Decentralized: Finding a Research Model to Support Your Org
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Vasileios Xanthopoulos
A Top-Down and Bottom-Up Approach to User-Centric Maturity at Scale
2024 • Enterprise Experience 2020
Gold
Carol Scott
Avoid Harming Your Team and Users: Promoting Care and Brand Reputation with Trauma-Informed UX Practices
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Kwabena Opoku
Methodological toolkit for unique research impact
2026 • Advancing Research 2026
Gold
Russ Unger
Onboarding: The Ecosystem, not the Afterthought
2017 • DesignOps Summit 2017
Gold
Aditi Ruiz
A PM State of Mind: Empathy Mapping Your Product Manager, Pt. 1
2022 • Design in Product 2022
Gold
Deanna Mitchell
Designing with culture: Unlocking impactful insights for Product and UX
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold

More Videos

Taylor Jennings

"We had to convince our director and executives by showing how the repository added real value for the product team."

Taylor Jennings Joe Nelson Alex Knoll

Repository Retrospective: Learnings from Introducing a Central Place for UX Research

March 9, 2022

Nicole Aleong

"Not everyone has the same capacity to aspire to a future; this is critical when working with marginalized communities."

Nicole Aleong

Future Orientations to Everyday Life: Futures Anthropology as a Methodology

March 26, 2024

Jeff Gothelf

"The team that comes up with the winning idea leaves the studio with equity and carries the idea forward."

Jeff Gothelf

Innovation Studios: the Engines of Enterprise Experimentation

May 14, 2015

Saara Kamppari-Miller

"Tools are great, but they do not solve all problems; training and understanding the why behind accessibility is essential."

Saara Kamppari-Miller

DesignOps for Inclusive Design and Accessibility

May 26, 2022

Tess Dixon

"It’s the individuals who choose whether and how they take advantage of the opportunities you create."

Tess Dixon

C'mon Get Happy

September 29, 2021

Liam Thurston

"All your team wants to do is win at career Bingo or career Snakes and Ladders, hopefully more ladders."

Liam Thurston

Why Your Design Team Is Quitting, And How To Fix It

June 10, 2022

Ian Swinson

"If you’re amazing at your job but no one listens to your research or design, does it really have impact?"

Ian Swinson

Designing and Driving UX Careers

June 8, 2016

Leisa Reichelt

"Context is really super important not only for design and research but for how you design organizations and ways of working."

Leisa Reichelt

Opening Keynote: Operating in Context

November 7, 2018

Rachael Greene

"A product designer said I can now see glaring inconsistencies before I got my head around design system patterns."

Rachael Greene Alison Davis

Building a Design Ops Practice that Really Works (Most of the Time)

October 2, 2025