Staging participatory design in time-constrained contexts

This article examines how participatory design can be staged in time-constrained contexts where traditional workshop formats are difficult to sustain. While participatory design has long emphasized the value of sustained stakeholder involvement, such formats can be difficult to realize in settings where participants work under significant temporal pressure. Drawing on a case study from nursing home care, the paper analyses four staged negotiation spaces and examines how participatory engagements were reconfigured to fit the everyday rhythms of different participant groups. Using the Staging Negotiation Spaces framework, the study shows how broad workshop-based formats struggled when moved directly into a time-pressured care environment, and how later negotiation spaces were staged differently through narrower framings, adapted invitation strategies, and more focused negotiation games. Across these spaces, time was not treated only as a constraint to be worked around, but as a design parameter that shaped what kinds of participation and analytical work became possible. The paper shows how co‑analysis can occur within limited, unevenly distributed time by distributing analytical work across designers’ preparation, the structure of negotiation games, and participants’ situated engagement. Situated temporal engagements thus enable reflective, analytical participation aligned with everyday temporalities.