In mid-June, the accepted paper will be presented at the Participatory Design Conference 2026 in Milan as part of a "Conversations" format. Researchers will convene to discuss and exchange ideas on the theme of "Democracy and Participation," focusing on democratic resilience, the impact of technology on democratic participation, and the potential of participatory design.

Abstract: Drawing on a participatory design workshop with eight researchers from five academic disciplines, we use the Ladder of Data Citizen Participation as a heuristic to evaluate a recommender system schematic. We identify disciplinary differences in how participation is conceptualised, ranging from representation and technical transparency to democratic self-determination. We also reveal diverging temporal notions of when participation occurs. Reflexive thematic analysis of workshop data highlights tensions between participation and usability, market pressures, and normative design values. We find that current recommender system logic, especially with AI-driven stochastic systems, challenges conventional participatory frameworks. The Ladder proves effective for eliciting epistemological differences but less suitable for guiding participatory system design. Our findings suggest the need for interdisciplinary alignment on participation concepts as a prerequisite for designing recommender systems that serve the public good.

Link to the Paper: https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3789492.3796410