Resource Human-Centered Design User Research

Challenges of participation in large-scale public projects

This paper analyzes the unique challenges of conducting participatory design in large-scale public projects, focusing on stakeholder management, fostering engagement, and integrating participatory methods into institutional transformation.

Author: Peter Dalsgaard
Published Year: 2010

The case study centers on the development of Mediaspace, a public multimedia library in Aarhus, Denmark, highlighting how participatory design principles were applied at every stage.

It identifies four main challenges: engaging highly diverse stakeholders, communicating the value of participation to the public, creating new techniques to support ongoing involvement, and balancing iterative design with the need for large-scale institutional change. The paper underscores the importance of embedding participatory values into project governance and the evolving role of public institutions in the digital age​