An Overview of Participatory Design and its Effects on User Satisfaction

ABSTRACT: The architect’ job is no longer to merely relying on designing environments for the people who lives in. The necessity of having an interaction with the user in the design process has become an important aspect of architecture. Thus, participatory design may shape the final product in providing better professional service, as well as increasing user satisfaction in the built environment. In this research, it is aimed to overview the participatory design concept, and its effects on the user satisfaction. Thus, the thesis will investigate user participation issue as a solution to the problem of user dissatisfaction in the designated environment. The thesis also aims to explore and evaluate the innovative methods to manage user involvement in the building design process. Besides, it is attempted to discuss to what extent the architect would let the user to be involved in the design issues. The methodological approach in this research is a mixture of methods in both qualitative and quantitative types. The various methods, tools and approaches are examined to unfold the research questions, and some participation methods are reviewed to undertake the further investigation. The analysis of the precedents is based on the study of recent successful projects of participatory methods. Cases are selected from several housing groups in Gazimagusa, North Cyprus to see availability of the concept. They are evaluated according to user categories as occupants, visitors and owners through data observation, questionnaire and interviews. In the conclusion, it has been shown that the user participation concepts are more efficient to overcome the problems, which are frequently experienced by the users. This procedure could be successfully applied in the design process to clarify and satisfy user needs and to define an interactive dialogue between the architect and user. Keywords: Participatory design; Participative methods; User participation; User Satisfaction, User Involvement. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………