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We address the theme of participation(s) otherwise by bringing forward what we see as an opportunity to combine existing participatory and service design approaches to participation in the way they weave connections between design, IT, digitalization and democracy, focusing on the context of the public sector. This is a context where participatory design, despite interest and projects, has not been widely adopted. However, service design, the ĝ€new kid on the block', is establishing itself by very pragmatically addressing the emerging need for people-centered design approaches in organizations, including in the public sector. Service design might at first be easily dismissed by participatory design because of what may seem a superficial take on people-centeredness and its links to business-centered interest in ĝ€design'. With this exploratory paper, we emphasize what both disciplines can learn from one another and propose that participatory design and service design join forces in expanding notions of participation and addressing the challenges of digitalization in the public sector.

This exploratory paper examines the relationship between Participatory Design (PD) and Sustainability as it emerges from the Participatory Design Conference (PDC). The reinvigorated political agenda of PD, together with the enlargements of its application domains and scopes of interest, calls for reinvigorating the early concerns of the field for long-term, durable, and positive change. The objective of this paper is to explore what "sustainability" means in and for the field. The study is based on a literature review of the PDC Proceedings and it provides both an outline of the structural aspects of the literature and a mapping of three use patterns of the concept: PD for Sustainability; Sustainability of PD Practice; and Sustainability of PD Results. Based on our interpretation of these patterns we also provide a general definition of sustainability. We believe the findings of this paper can support PD scholars in conceptualizing sustainability and to position their works in relation to it.