Though widely used in Europe and Scandinavia, only in recent years has participatory design spread to developers, researchers, and organizations creating software in the United States. While software has expanded its reach in business organizations, incorporating more functions and more people than other types of technology and than did previous generations of computer systems, the way in which software is developed has not expanded and changed at the same rate (Salzman). The way businesses are run in the United States is still not conducive to participatory design, and the traditional form of software development remains the most widely used. The following information attempts to explain the reasons for the slow increase in popularity of participatory design in the United States, as well as how participatory design is currently being used in the United States