Political Frameworks for System Design: Participatory Design in Non-Profit Women's Organizations in Canada and the United States

INTRODUCTION

In this paper I attempt to extend the analysis of gender as a factor in participatory design initiatives by focusing on the challenges of implementing participatory design in the context of non-profit women's organizations. The context for my discussion is set by outlining a recent initiative to design a nationwide feminist computer network in Canada. I focus on the relations between design practices and politics by investigating aspects of women’s organizations that reflect ideological commitments, and present challenges in relation to participatory design. Organizational structures that differentiate feminist non-profit organizations from other organizational forms are identified as particular challenges that must be addressed in order for participatory design to be successful in the context of women’s groups.

BACKGROUND

As I unlocked my office door on a Friday morning a few months ago, the phone was ringing. The caller wanted to know if I had gotten the fax she had sent out late the day before. The fax contained a request to participate in a cross-country teleconference (conference call), scheduled for later that day. The caller explained that the teleconference had been arranged so feminist researchers across the country could discuss setting up a nation wide computer network focusing on feminist research and policy. I pulled out my calendar to see if I was free for the teleconference.

The teleconference had been set up by a staff member of the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women (CACSW). It was widely rumored that the CACSW (which had been set up 25 years ago with federal funds in order to ensure that government policy was responsive to the needs of women and would promote the advancement of women) was going to be eliminated in the next federal budget. Many of us assumed that among the reasons the CACSW was considering setting up a computer network at this time was so that there would be a communications channel in existence both in time for mobilization (if needed) once the federal budget was announced, and, in the event that the CACSW was eliminated with the budget (it was), that there would be an infrastructure in place to facilitate the kind of critical analysis that the CACSW had performed.

The teleconference involved about twenty-five women, representing feminist researchers in Canada's ten provinces. Although most of the participants regularly used computers in their work, experience with electronic mail was generally limited, and in some cases, participants had never used a computer network. Although several of the participants had scientific backgrounds, I was the only tele-conference participant with extensive knowledge of computers and computer networking. As a result, I was called upon to elucidate the technical implications of the ideas that were discussed. During the teleconference, communication occurred in both official languages (French and English), although not all participants were bilingual. Consequently, communication had to be periodically halted while brief translations were done.

This seemingly simple scenario actually conveys a great deal about the nature of feminist organizing in Canada, and thus is a useful starting point in discussing issues that arise when feminist organizations become participant designers. A great deal of feminist organizing and activity, like our conference call, was facilitated by a member of one organization, and brings together both individuals and representatives of other groups and institutions in an ad hoc network in order to respond to a crisis (the impending budget cuts that would result in the elimination of the CACSW). The majority of groups represented in our conference call were attempting to carry out a range of vital services within their provinces, with little or no budget, and usually, inadequate staff. Many of us were participating in the conference call, (and would be participating in the computer network that resulted from our efforts) on top of our 'official' workplace responsibilities.

Although collectively we had considerable talent, as a group we lacked technical expertise related to the system we were attempting to implement. We were hoping to carry out our project on a very short time line. Finally, we had a commitment to diversity and inclusion. In the case of our conference call this meant geographic inclusion (representatives from all provinces, as well as ideally, both territories), cultural diversity (anglophone/fracophone, as well as inclusion of numerous ethnic groups organized throughout Canada), and the participation of a range of organizations including community- based grass-roots organizations, university based programmes, research institutes, and quasi-governmental organizations.

Although each organization represented had a different structure, participants had an unspoken (but widely understood) commitment to feminist organizational forms (discussed at greater length below). First, feminist ideologies have implications for work design, and thus, system design. Second, the nature of feminist organizing has implications for development of organizational frameworks for action. Third, the industrial relations context of women’s organizations is influenced by both the ideology of feminist organizing and the relation of women’s organizations to the state. Such conditions present unique challenges in terms of participatory design.

PARTICIPATORY DESIGN: THEORY AND PRACTICE

Participatory design is not a single theory or technique. Rather, it is a set of perspectives that share concern for a "more humane, creative and effective relationship between those involved in technology’s design and it’s use" (Suchman, 1993:viii). Greenbaum (1991) suggests that the goal of the participatory design movement is to encourage active participation in the design process by people using computer systems. The focal idea of participatory design is that workers should be involved in the design of technology as users of technology, and that involvement with the design process should ideally empower users (Greenbaum and Kyng, 1991). Participatory design has both political and technical features (Ehn, 1993). It is political in that it raises questions about democracy, power and control in the workplace. It is technical in that it promises that the participation of users in the process of designing technology can make important contributions to successful design and quality products.

Neither a set of methods nor beliefs, participatory design is an approach that borrows practices from other areas and applies them to the workplace, with the end goal of enabling people to speak out about their needs (Greenbaum, 1991). The practices and techniques used in the participatory design process may not be inherently participatory. However, they are selected for use in participatory design projects with the assumption that their use will accommodate the political and social goals of participatory design. For the purposes of my discussion below, I generally do not distinguish between the philosophical approach of participatory design and the methods employed to realize those goals. I assume that the use of techniques or methods in a participatory design project pre-supposes a participatory approach. Indeed, one of the questions raised in my discussion of participatory design in women’s organizations is whether an ideology of participation is in itself sufficient to support a participatory design process.

COMPUTER USE AND ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

Work on the use of computers in the context of grass roots social change (e.g., Downing, Fasano, Friedland, McCullough, Mizrahi, and Shapiro, 1991) suggests that, at the very minimum, small community based organizations operate within very different constraints than better capitalized profit-driven organizations. More specifically, Rubinyi's (1989) findings suggested that groups that were more successful in utilizing computer technology were more likely to have a centralized decision making process. In light of the predominance of non-hierarchical organizational forms and the commonality of decentralized decision making structures amongst feminist organizations, Rubinyi’s findings sparked a line of inquiry about organizational structure in our study of computer use amongst organizations serving women in Newfoundland and Labrador. Findings of our study are reported elsewhere (see Balka & Doucette, 1994 and Balka, under review). Below I address some of the challenges feminist organizational structures present for participatory designers.

FEMINIST ORGANIZING AND ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE: AN OVERVIEW

Women’s organizations exist to perform a number of functions, including lobbying the government, and providing services and education (Barnsley, Ellis, & Jacobson, 1986). Freeman and Macmillian (1976) identify the functions a women's organization can serve. These include the production of a product (e.g., books or media resources) or provision of a service (e.g., crisis counseling); the provision of a job and/or skill development for workers (this is often an implicit characteristic of collectivist organizations, and in Canada is made more explicit when government job training funds are relied on for staff salaries); the provision of research or educational services, and the transmission of education and ideas through the media. In Canada in particular it is not uncommon for coalitions to form to plan events or collaborate in hopes of improving service delivery in relation to a specific issue.

Several authors differentiate between two types of organizational structures adopted by feminists in social change groups. Bureaucratic organizations follow traditional hierarchical organizational principles, while collectivist organizations attempt to embody principles that grew from realizations gained through consciousness raising groups. In some cases lacking a critique of traditional organizational structures (and in other cases, perhaps finding collectivist process too cumbersome for the size of the organization), typically, bureaucratic women’s organizations retain the structures and processes that characterize traditional bureaucratic organizations. They rely on a hierarchical structure, have set rules (and often operate with the aid of Robert's Rules of Order), pay that reflects position and so on. However, they may modify these structures to meet their needs (Adamson, Briskin & McPhail, 1988).

In collectivist organizations authority resides in a collectivity as a whole, although it may be temporarily delegated. Rather than a hierarchical structure and fixed rules, collectivist organizations strive towards consensus, and fluid rules (that are situational and ad-hoc, rather than fixed and impartial). Social control is exercised through personalized appeals and shared values rather than through supervision and formal sanctions. Within the ideal collectivist organization, there is no hierarchy of positions, and rewards (pay and benefits) are distributed in an egalitarian manner with limited differentials rather than by office or status. There is a minimal division of labour, with administrative tasks often combined with performance tasks, and a generalization of jobs and functions. Rather than specialized roles, competency in a wide range of areas is stressed. Martin (1990) suggests that scholars of collectivist organizations tend to agree on their essential qualities, which include how authority or control are organized, and the goal of participatory democracy.

PARTICIPATORY DESIGN AND ORGANIZATIONS SERVING WOMEN

Democracy (understood as minimal hierarchy and broad participation) is highly valued in feminist organizations (both bureaucratic and collectivist), and some scholarship (Knoke, 1989) has suggested that women’s political organizations are more democratic than several other types of organizations. Like participatory design practices, feminist organizations are supposed to be socially transformational and empowering for participants (Martin, 1990). Feminist values suggest that work within feminist organizations should be conceptualized as a social rather than technical relationship, and that technology should be viewed as a tool accessible to all, rather than just to experts (Martin, 1990). Indeed, it appears that aspects of feminist organizational practice such as an underlying philosophy of cooperation and collective work, shared authority and a privileging of experience over expertise would create favorable circumstances for participatory design projects. However, despite the apparent philosophical similarities between participatory design and feminist organizations, participatory design may be more difficult to implement than traditional systems design in feminist organizations (especially collectivist organizations) because of constraints posed by the political climate feminist organizations both exist within and seek to change.

Organizations serving women present participatory design facilitators with many challenges. With such great variation in the goals of feminist organizations, infrastructures and management (or governance) procedures, there are no hard and fast rules to govern the development or implementation of systems in these organizations. Clearly, the introduction of computers into women’s organizations will add an additional layer of complexity to what is in many cases already a complex and unstable organizational environment. In addition, attempts to facilitate a participatory design process in women’s organizations may be hampered by poorly defined roles within organizations, limited financial and human resource availability, rapid staff turnover (related to both reliance on volunteer labour and reliance on government job training programs that limit the length of time a person can be employed) and a general environment of operation that often occurs in relation to crises, such as chronically unstable funding and budget cuts. Participatory design may be more difficult to implement than traditional approaches to system design in feminist organizations if it requires greater staff input and resources, which women’s groups are often ill-equipped to offer due to under-resourcing.

Briskin (1991) and Ristock (1991) both point out that feminists have faced serious difficulties in attempting to build alternative organizational structures. Ristock describes this process: "working collectively can feel like working in a structureless group where consensus is difficult to reach and where organizing efforts are stuck in a web of conflict" (p. 42). Freeman, writing about collective organizations in 1973 urged women’s groups to formalize leadership, so that those in positions of authority would be made accountable. Freeman argued that where leadership remains informal, it can become manipulative and undemocratic. Ristock, writing nearly twenty years after Freeman points out that Freeman’s focus on authority, leadership and power was prophetic; these remain key issues for feminist collectives in the 1990s.

Although it is widely accepted among practitioners of participatory design that "the design of technology is a continuous aspect of its use" (Suchman, 1991, 434), some aspects of women’s organizations (such as non-hierarchical decision making and extensive reliance on voluntary labour) may make it difficult to support participatory design practices. For example, in their study of women’s organizations in the province of Newfoundland (Canada), Balka and Doucette (Balka and Doucette, 1994 and Balka, under review) found that in some cases, organizations maintained two structures. To the extent that feminist organizations operate outside of the state/institutional structure, they are free to practice collectivism as they see fit. In contrast, many feminist organizations (that in Canada are often tied to state funding, and are ultimately concerned with exerting pressure on the state) must maintain a certain amount of legitimacy in the eyes of the state. A non-profit organization by law is required to maintain a certain organizational structure, if only on paper. In situations where this is the case, a feminist organization, (by virtue of not disengaging from the state), must reconcile the competing demands of practicing a collectivist organizational strategy within the organization, as opposed to running the organization according to the criteria established by law. In the best situations, this is easily resolved: everyone consciously agrees on a structure that will make funding sources happy, yet is simultaneously consistent with feminist organizational principles. In the worst possible cases, this tension between competing demands remains unresolved, and the organization collapses. In either case, participatory designers must determine which of two competing organizational models a computer system supports.

Although the theory of participatory design allows for the possibility of dynamic (and perhaps unstable) institutional structures, many of the methods frequently adapted by participatory designers (such as prototyping and study circles) assume, and indeed require, a more stable organizational environment than many women’s organizations offer. Some practitioners (Hales and O'Hara 1993) have indicated that the absence of a member of a design team who has been very involved with the participatory design process (for example, as a result of moving to a different job) can impede project progress. In addition, Hales and O’Hara (1993, 143) also noted that some members of a design team they worked with "already demoralized by the lack of progress, became further demoralized when faced with a) criticism from peers disrupted by their absence, and b) the increased pressure on their domestic obligations as a result of design team commitments." In addition, a lack of a clear focus on job design and career development can result in problems with participation and implementation for design teams (Hales and O’Hara, 1993).

These problems are often compounded in women’s organizations that are understaffed and rely extensively on volunteer labour. For example, in Balka and Doucette’s study of women’s organizations in Newfoundland, forty-four percent of the groups (n=57) had no paid staff, and 80.6% of groups (n=104) relied on volunteers in efforts to accomplish their goals. This leads to tensions between voluntary staff members and paid staff, blurring of responsibilities between the two groups, and difficulties associated with trying to enforce work standards and deadlines (as well as participation) among voluntary staff members. Long term organizational instability can occur when voluntary staff (who often perform vital tasks like maintaining financial records) leave an organization.

Because anecdotal stories and participation in feminist organizations suggested that volunteer workers often engaged in tasks (such as maintaining financial records and typing correspondences) that were essential to the organization’s operation, Balka and Doucette asked respondents from organizations with paid staff members to indicate whether paid staff members, steering committee (or board) members, or other volunteers engaged in a range of tasks commonly carried out in organizations, such as typing, answering phones, maintaining financial records, filing, paying bills, and other computer work. In virtually all instances where an organization had some combination of paid staff, some form of governing structure such as a board or steering committee, and/or volunteers, tasks that are integral to the group’s existence were carried out by all types of workers. For example, in only 39.2% (n=40) of cases were bills paid only by paid staff in a group, and financial records were maintained by paid staff only in 34.3% (n=35) of cases. In 25.5% of cases (n=26), financial records were maintained only by board or steering committee members, and in 15.7% of cases (n=16), financial records were maintained only by volunteers that were not involved in the formal governance of the organization.

As in the case of other organizations, the interests of each of these groups of workers differs. However, the differences do not represent the clear extremes that often characterize a corporate workplace. In feminist organizations, workers’ desires to have a democratic workplace with skilled jobs may be more politically palatable to boards and management (in bureaucratic organizations) than in a corporate structure, though the conflicts between paid staff and management or boards may be no less pronounced. It may be the case that the ideology of shared responsibility for tasks (understood as an element of workplace democracy) ultimately constrains participatory design activities in collectivist feminist organizations because the reality of power relations may become obscured by a discourse of equality. In addition, such extensive task sharing may obscure authority and organizational accountability, rendering participatory design’s ideal of a quality product more difficult to attain.

Contributors to the collection Computers for Social Change and Community Organizing (Downing, Fasano, Friedland, McCullough, Mizrahi, & Shapiro, 1991) identify several issues that have emerged in their efforts to implement computer systems in social change organizations. Fasano and Shapiro describe these organizations as "small non-profit political and community-based organizations...with small staffs, low budgets, lack of formal bureaucracies, [that are] value driven..." (p. 130). These organizations are structurally similar to women’s organizations, and hence can provide valuable insights in terms of the use of computers by women’s organizations. Cordero (1991), in writing about a non-profit community development organization, reports that internal organizational problems related to a new computer system revolved around training and staffing. She reports that it was easier to get money for hardware, or donations of hardware than it was to get money for staff, training, or software. In the organization Cordero writes about, college interns with little commitment to the organization carried out initial programming tasks. The resultant system had many technical problems. High staff turnover made it difficult to both train people to use the new computer system, and obtain information about its effectiveness.

In Cordero’s workplace, the organization benefited from having one person assigned the responsibility of maintaining the computer system. In addition, a computer specialist (employed part-time as a consultant) was involved with computer implementation on an ongoing basis. Finally, Cordero (1991) observed that even when a need for computers was recognized and computer facilities existed within an organization, users may not use computers because they lacked the time to learn (Balka, 1987 reports a similar phenomenon). To counter these difficulties, Cordero advocated computer support groups geared for non-profit organizations.

Clement (1991, 22) suggests that end user computing literature provides indirect support for one of his findings, that one aspect of local design involves the "spontaneous emergence of 'local experts' and the strong preference that users show for obtaining assistance from others in their immediate work groups." Along similar lines, several of the computer consultants specializing in non-profits that Fasano and Shapiro (1991) interviewed reported problems when organizations did not have a person in the organization who was willing to "champion the process" of computerization. A woman consultant interviewed by Fasano and Shapiro stated that

I, in fact, don’t even take jobs now unless an organization has one person who is the computer champion/guru. And if an organization can’t come up with that person, then I tell them they’re not ready to install a database system (p. 132).

The quote above suggests that specialization of tasks may be a desirable state of affairs in terms of implementing computers in an organizational context. Both the data collected by Balka and Doucette (see Balka & Doucette, 1994, and Balka, under review), and observations from working with women’s organizations suggest that any efforts undertaken to clarify roles and responsibilities amongst groups of workers within women’s organizations will enhance efforts to develop or implement computer systems within these organizations. Although many strategies can be used towards this end, de Cindio and Simone’s (1993) ‘universes of discourse’ may be particularly well suited to the task of clarifying roles and tasks within women’s organizations.

Although task and knowledge specialization may seem like viable solutions to both the organizational difficulties presented when tasks and roles are shared extensively and the challenges such practices pose in terms of participatory design, the high degrees of task specialization and specialized knowledge advocated by Cordero (1991) are philosophically at odds with the fundamental principles of collectivist feminist organizations. In addition, if specialized knowledge is guarded within an organization, it is very difficult for other members of the organization to develop an understanding and appreation of how their tasks fit into the larger organizational milieu, which is an asset during participatory design.

DISCUSSION

Through considering participatory design in the context of organizations serving women several important points are illuminated. First, a commitment to the principles of participatory design is not in itself sufficient to foster a participatory design process. Second, in addition to a commitment to the principles of participatory design, would-be user-designers need to strike a delicate balance between specialized tasks and knowledge and shared tasks and knowledge. Third, hierarchies and/or chains of authority must be clear enough to be described as part of the participatory design process.

The social location of women’s groups sets an agenda in relation to the distribution of resources (often controlled by the government), while emphasis on feminist practice anchors organizational practices in a focus on work process rather than work productivity or products. Although feminism is philosophically in tune with the principles of participatory design, the paucity of resources that characterizes many women’s organizations mitigates against participatory approaches to system design. Further, in efforts to develop new organizational structures, many feminists have equated order with hierarchy, and rejected both as undesirable characteristics of patriarchy. One consequence of this may be a rejection of professional cultures (to which participatory design practitioners may belong), at the same time that forming an alliance with members of professional cultures may be desirable (e.g., to engage in participatory design practices). This suggests that it is perhaps time to re-evaluate this linkage of order with hierarchy, and begin struggling with developing order within women’s organizations in non-hierarchical ways. Participatory design may provide women’s organizations with an excellent opportunity to investigate and revise organizational structures, and the past failures of feminist organizational practice may be useful points of reflection for participatory designers struggling with questions about authority, specialization of knowledge and tasks that arise in participatory approaches to design.

Participatory design as an approach must be practical in a range of organizational structures, including those that fall outside of business norms. In order to be an effective approach to designing and implementing computer systems within the context of women’s organizations, our notions of participatory design may need to be expanded, to include a greater emphasis on social aspects of organizational structure, such as authority and decision making structures, and clarification of roles, tasks and responsibilities. It appears that some degree of task specialization, authority and hierarchy are essential to the success of participatory design projects. Thus, it may be pre-mature to attempt participatory design in collectivist organizations. Bureaucratic feminist organizations (which are more likely to have paid staff) are also more likely to display task and knowledge specialization as well as explicit chains of authority, all of which appear to be essential to participatory design projects.

Successful use of participatory design in collectivist organizations may require an extensive prior step of organizational review and development that encourages group members to take a close and sobering look at who is responsible for what tasks within the organizational structure. As participatory designers, we need to develop tools, practices and techniques that will enable an organization’s workers/members/volunteers to develop a shared sense of structure, that can become the basis for system design.

Although the workers in Canada do not have a legal right to participate in technological decision making, in the context of women’s organizations the 'right to participate' in decisions related to all aspects of the organization is often legitimated by feminist organizational culture. Nonetheless, to date, participation in technological decision making by workers in women’s organizations has been limited. This reflects many factors, including a historically anti-technology bias in the women’s movement, the under- representation of women in technical fields, and the gendered nature of expertise (see Balka, 1986 and Balka, under review). In order to work effectively with voluntary feminist organizations, participatory designers may need to expand the notion of the design process in order to place further emphasis on the acquisition of basic technical knowledge.

Consideration of gender and organizational structure in relation to participatory design suggests that it is perhaps time for participatory designers to begin turning their attention to the challenges related to designing for unstable, poorly capitalized organizations and a wide range of learners. Such efforts will surly benefit all participatory design projects.

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__________________________________ (1) This may be true for the National Action Committee (NAC) in Canada. NAC is the largest women’s lobbying organization in Canada, representing over five hundred women’s groups ranging from women’s caucuses in organized political parties and unions to small collectivist organizations that exist to address local needs in their communities. See Vickers (1991) and Greaves (1991) in Wine & Ristock (1991) for extended discussions of NAC.

(2) Interestingly, in none of the literature reviewed here about the women's movement in general, and organizational structures of the women's movement in particular, has there been a discussion of the differences between collectives and cooperatives. Without going into too much detail one of the things that distinguishes these two organizational forms has to do with the division of labour. In a true collective, the division of labour is minimal, with all members rotating between all tasks. In a cooperative, there is usually a greater division of labour, with certain members responsible exclusively for certain tasks. In addition, cooperatives often function internally according to prescribed rules (such as one member, one vote; there may be a director and so on) that bear some relationship to the internal structures of a bureaucratic organization.