@inproceedings{wilson-etal-2025-participatory,
    title = "Participatory Design for Positive Impact: Behind the Scenes of Three {NLP} Projects",
    author = "Wilson, Marianne  and
      Howcroft, David M.  and
      Konstas, Ioannis  and
      Gkatzia, Dimitra  and
      Abercrombie, Gavin",
    editor = "Atwell, Katherine  and
      Biester, Laura  and
      Borah, Angana  and
      Dementieva, Daryna  and
      Ignat, Oana  and
      Kotonya, Neema  and
      Liu, Ziyi  and
      Wan, Ruyuan  and
      Wilson, Steven  and
      Zhao, Jieyu",
    booktitle = "Proceedings of the Fourth Workshop on NLP for Positive Impact (NLP4PI)",
    month = jul,
    year = "2025",
    address = "Vienna, Austria",
    publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
    url = "https://preview.aclanthology.org/landing_page/2025.nlp4pi-1.21/",
    pages = "252--263",
    ISBN = "978-1-959429-19-7",
    abstract = "Researchers in Natural Language Processing (NLP) are increasingly adopting participatory design (PD) principles to better achieve positive outcomes for stakeholders. This paper evaluates two PD perspectives proposed by Delgado et al. (2023) and Caselli et al. (2021) as interpretive and planning tools for NLP research. We reflect on our experiences adopting PD practices in three NLP projects that aim to create positive impact for different communities, and that span different domains and stages of NLP research. We assess how our projects align with PD goals and use these perspectives to identify the benefits and challenges of PD in NLP research. Our findings suggest that, while Caselli et al. (2021) and Delgado et al. (2023) provide valuable guidance, their application in research can be hindered by existing NLP practices, funding structures, and limited access to stakeholders. We propose that researchers adapt their PD praxis to the circumstances of specific projects and communities, using them as flexible guides rather than rigid prescriptions."
}