Participatory design is an attitude about a force for change in the creation and management of environments for people. Its strength lies in being a movement that cuts across traditional professional boundaries and cultures. Its roots lie in the ideals of a participatory democracy where collective decision-making is highly decentralized throughout all sectors of society, so that all individuals learn participatory skills and can effectively participate in various ways in the making of all decisions that affect them. Increasingly complex decision-making processes require a more informed citizenry that has considered the evidence on the issue, discussed potential decision options and arrived at a mutually agreed upon decision (Abelson et al, 2003).

Today participatory design processes are being applied to urban design, planning, and geography as well as to the fields of industrial and information technology. Research findings suggest that positive outcomes are associated with solutions being informed by users' tacit knowledge (Spinuzzi, 2005). More recently, another factor has been suggested as being partly responsible for favorable participatory design outcomes, which is described as collective intelligence (Fischer et al., 2005). Atlee (2003) describes collective intelligence (CI) as a shared insight that comes about through the process of group interaction, particularly where the outcome is more insightful and powerful than the sum of individual perspectives. When people align their individual intelligences in shared undertakings, instead of using their intelligence to undermine each other in pursuit of individual status, they are much more able to generate collective intelligence.