The authors held a workshop called “Translation in Participatory Design” at the Conference on Participatory Design (PDC ‘92). The goal of the workshop was to elucidate the notion of translation in participatory design. We intended to focus on the special role that can be played by software designers who are also experts in the field for which they are developing software. Our major claim was that some design tasks can be completed successfully or expediently only by a software designer who has worked in the user’s field. In the course of the workshop, a more complex and detailed account of the translator role was developed, with attention to how, why, and by whom this role is taken on during design.