The objective of this paper is to provide a systematic view of how Participatory Design(PD) has been spread and developed over the last two decades and to identify prospective challenges and opportunities. Both quantitative scientometrics analysis and qualitative analysis were adopted to identify focuses and trends in PD. With Web of Science (WoS) core collection as the data source, we used CiteSpace and VOS viewer software to visualize scholarly contribution, impact, and connections by analyzing the definition, methodology, and practice of PD. A themebased qualitative analysis was used to reveal the evolution of participatory design research development and explores future trends.