Valuing implicit decision-making in participatory design: A relational approach in design with people with dementia

Sharing design decisions between designers and the people we design for and with, is a common aim in participatory design (PD). When working with people with dementia this rarely happens in explicit ways. Design decisions implicitly emerge from the relationships designers build with people with dementia. We argue that designers should value this relational approach and make transparent how it informs the design decisions. We were inspired by how person-centred care (PCC) is used by care practitioners to explain how they work in a relational way with people with dementia. In this paper, we explore how PCC can support PD researchers to acquire relational expertise, which we illustrate by means of a design project for and with people with dementia.