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Lost in translation: a critical analysis of actors, artifacts, agendas, and arenas in participatory design

As computer technologies start to permeate the everyday activities of a continuously growing population, social and technical as well as political and legal issues will surface. Participatory design is asked to take a more critical view of participation, design, technology, and the arenas in which the network of actors and artifacts dialectically construct the social orders. This paper has a much more modest aim of that to contribute the discussion of participation and design in part by a more indepth understanding of the translation problem among different actors who directly participate in participatory design activities. This problem takes place when different actors come to participate in the design activities and when they are to decide whether to adopt and use a designed artifact. By analyzing a multi-year-long effort to understand and provide social and technical means for the use of educational computer technologies in special education, this paper aims to shed new light on the understanding of this problem. The arenas of participation framework is employed to frame the different social orders in which actors act, carry out their work practices, participate in design processes, and ultimately make use of this artifact. While fundamental to the democratization of the design of sociotechnical solutions, participatory design may not be sufficient to reveal all sociopolitical issues of work practices that surface in its adoption and use. It is necessary to take into account the different arenas in which their design and use are carried out.