Participatory design (PD) is an approach to engineering technological systems that seeks to improve them by including future users in the design process. It is motivated primarily by an interest in empowering users, but also by a concern to build systems better suited to user needs. Traditionally, PD has focused on the design of information systems, though the same approach has been applied to other technologies. In order to respect the social contexts in which users work, PD practitioners explicitly consider the practical demands workers must meet in order to do their jobs, as well as the political relationships that exist between workers, their management, and technology designers. As a design subdiscipline, PD directly addresses both technological and ethical issues in the design of systems. Because of this, some people have argued that PD can be used as a model for the "democratization of technology."

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