A reflection on designing participatory design workshop – Case study of elderly product development workshop with multidisciplinary collaboration

In favor of human-centered viewpoint, implementing participatory design approach becomes more prevalent in design process. Designing a design workshop for participants with multidisciplinary background and agenda arouses much strenuous challenge than a general design workshop for people with similar background. To ferment an appropriate final deliverable, is it necessary or useful to plan ahead any expected outcomes? It is also worthwhile to argue who owns the right to shape the final design. In this paper, we will describe the scopes an identify the characteristics of general workshop and a review of various participatory design workshops, and finally share the model and reflection on a latest workshop of developing elderly product & service. The collaborative inquiries with elderly users, service providers, product retailors and developers were facilitated to generate insightful ideas. Reflection and recommendation of designing the workshop are shared.