QUILT: Designing a values-driven toolkit for surfacing participant-led impact assessment of participatory design and making experiences

Conventional impact assessment tools can overlook subtle sensory,cognitive and interpersonal transformations experienced in participatory designand making interventions by focusing on metrics, often retrospectively, rather thanfacilitating shared dialogue-based learning. The process of designing the QUILTtoolkit discussed in this paper is anchored in a values-based approach that aims toprioritise participant-led narratives of discovery and change. Working with sevenresearcher-practitioners undertaking active projects in varied interdisciplinary andsocially engaged design and making contexts, and their participant groups, wedesigned and tested questions, presented as a set of cards, for prompting dialogueand co-reflection. Findings highlight a) the significance of moving away fromextractive transactions towards reciprocity in generating deeper understandings ofimpact, and b) the importance of attending to impact emerging at different stagesof a project. The paper concludes that designing for impact should aim to be areciprocal process maximising learning for both participants and researchers.