Extending Participatory Design Principles to Structured User-Generated Content

The long tradition of research on participative design dates back to 1970 s and has traditionally investigated software development within organizational settings. In this context, many approaches to engaging users in software development were proposed and evaluated, leading to the establishment of principles of participative design. Recently, the proliferation of content-producing technologies such as social media and crowdsourcing has led to the explosion of user-generated content (UGC). In this paper we discuss how UGC settings differ substantially from the organizational environment in which principles of participative design have been originally developed. Developing systems that harness UGC presents unique challenges of user engagement generally not present in organizational settings. We thus identify the need for research extending participative design principles to the context of user-generated content.