CO-DESIGN PROCESS

Definition:

‘co’ in co-design stands for collaborative and community a product, service, or organization development process where design professionals empower,

encourage, and guide users to develop solutions for themselves a development of systems thinking, which according to C. West Churchman “begins when first

you view the world through the eyes of another” believes that by encouraging the trained designer and the user to create solutions together, the

final result will be more appropriate and acceptable to the user

CO-DESIGN: “WITH WHOM?”

People are able to contribute to the shape and the direction of the design, regardless of their design expertise.

Design opens up to include users and other stakeholders as idea generators, decision makers and partners.

Users become partners in the design process helping the designers to shape the definition and direction of the design project. Importantly, this goes well beyond “asking users what they want”.

We want to explore, and co-discover with our participants, things like:

THREE DIMENSIONS OF CO-DESIGN:

• Horizontal co-design – learning and working with colleagues in parallel organizations, who could be in the same region, the same country or in other countries. An example of horizontal co-design would be joint working with neighboring municipalities.

Sample:

• Vertical co-design – working with stakeholders up and down the service delivery chain. This could start with ICT departments working with or involving stakeholders in a service delivery department, right though to an improvement process led by citizens and customers.

• Intensity – is the engagement simply a case of fact-finding, or are the people involved in the design process able to shape the outcome together?

CO-DESIGN: “WHY?”

• Pragmatic - users are experts of their own domain. Involving them is likely to accomplish a better outcome.

• Innovation - leads to new perspectives and alternate ways of doing things.

• Political - people have the right to participate in the design of things that impact them.

FOUR ASPECTS OF CO-DESIGN

1. Participation: co-design is collaborative.

There is a great deal of transparency involved in co-design: all participants are aware of the design methodology, its inputs and outputs, its goals and current status, etc.. It is designing with people, not merely for people.

2. Development: co-design is a developmental process.

It involves the exchange of information and expertise on both the subject of the design process and the process itself. In this senses, co-design teaches co-design.

3. Ownership and power: co-design shifts power to the process, creating a framework that defines and maintains the necessary balance of rights and freedoms between participants.

There is equality of legitimacy and value in inputs from all those involved, whether suggestions entail large- or small-scale changes.

4. Outcomes and intent: co-design activities are outcome-based.

They possess a practical focus, with a clarity of vision and direction. Methodology and implementation seek to ensure a shared creative intent between all participants.

CO-DESIGN “HOW?”

CO-DESIGN APPROACH

• START WITH A QUESTION NOT A SOLUTION

Starting with a question avoids pre-supposing a solution before fully understand the context. Radical solutions start with big questions, more incremental improvements with more tightly defined questions.

• EVERYTHING IS AN ASSUMPTION

Assumptions that can be tested. The frameworks used to describe the assumptions that is tested in a given project have been adapted from innovation and program theory.

• LEARN FROM PEOPLE IN CONTEXT

To refine the assumptions, use design methods. People are the experts in their own lives and methods like guided interviews and ethnography can reveal surprising insights into problems that can serve as a starting point for new solutions.

• LEARN THROUGH MAKING AND TESTING

Testing assumptions in context through methods like prototyping can help refine or reject those assumptions. This kind of early testing can help to mitigate risk - by identifying what does and doesn't work sooner. Allowing resources to flow to what might work rather that what doesn't.

SOME PRACTICE

• Visual, creative, expressive

There is an emphasis on visual materials, making things and use of imagery as a way for people to make associations and communicate.

• Physical and tangible

Physically making things helps people to explore, verbalize, remember and imagine (Sanders in particular emphasis the “make” aspect of generative methods).

• Based on story telling

We naturally tell stories, actual stories and examples help put things into context, and they are also a central way of sharing, communicating and visioning. Creating and telling stories (real or imagined) can be visual, verbal or include role play, they help to prompt, remind, and brings things that are normally tacit out into the foreground.

Playful, fun and embrace ambiguity

Fun is a deeply important aspect of participation, it is central to developing platforms for sharing, trust building, confidence and helping people open up. It is also part of keeping people’s energy levels up, if people are tired and the activities too serious, people will lose interest. Co-design sessions should be fun and enjoyable as well as ‘productive’. (They are also key relationship building activities).

• Reflective, personal, subjective

Interventions that support reflection and introspection help to make things that are otherwise embedded into our ‘everyday’ accessible and sharable. For this reason it is very common to do reflection or ‘primer’ exercises before workshops, such as diaries or cultural probes. Asking people to observe their own behaviors for a period of time, brings things to the surface before an interview or workshop.

CO-DESIGN PROCESS

LOOP 1 FRAME

• Start with a question that sets out what are trying to improve and for whom. Once the question is defined, name the assumptions to test and create a shared understanding of the task in hand.

LOOP 2 RECRUIT

• Identify and select a sample of people to participate in research. Methods use include:

Public recruitment

Telephone recruitment

Door knocking

Online recruitment

LOOP 3 RESEARCH

• Carry out research with participants in context to learn about their lives and their aspirations. Spending time with people experiencing challenges, and with people who've gotten through them, helps to determine what people consider a good outcome and what enables a good outcome. Methods use include:

Rapid ethnography

Guided interviews

Card sorts

Family dinners

LOOP 4 ANALYSIS

• Analyze what have learned from research, the themes and patterns, and re-frame the assumption about the problem and potential solution.

LOOP 5 CREATE

• Create ideas for potential solutions, drawing on analysis, the ideas of people and international examples. Visualize solutions to bring them to life, debate their merits and improve them as a team. Methods we use include:

Storyboards

Written scenarios

Sketching

LOOP 6 PROBE

• Test components of potential solutions with people to learn if they are attractive and to improve them further. Methods we use include:

Card sorts

Service evidence

Storyboards

LOOP 7 PROTOTYPE

• Run a live test of proposed solution in context and continually modify the solution until you get to something that you believe could create change. Trying out solutions on a small scale helps us cheaply test what works and what doesn't before investing in implementation.

LOOP 8 SHARE

• Consolidate what have learned from prototyping, document the solution, its potential for impact and create the case for further investment. Methods we use include:

Reports

Demonstrations

Learning experiences

Presentations

Blueprint

THE OUTCOMES:

Co-design sessions:

• Allow us to create a shared understanding and shared language between participants and the designers.

• They enable immersion, dialogue and empathy, we start to understand the design from the point of view of the participants.

• The outputs are sources of both inspiration and information for designers and participants to work with in visioning future designs. They are information gathering and design generating activities, blurring the boundaries of research and design.

And they are:

• Designerly

The outputs from these kinds of methods differ significantly from interviews, surveys or observations. They generate rich visual, subjective and tangible material to work with. Designers benefit from working with concrete things they can see and feel and the immediacy and accessibility of this kind of material makes it a natural resource for designers, quite different to that of a report.

CO-DESIGNED PROJECTS

Mobility, Mood and Place is funded by Research Councils UK to explore how to make mobility easy, enjoyable and meaningful for older people. It is a response to the challenges faced by a globally ageing population for whom quality of life has been linked to access to safe and stimulating environments into oldest age.

Pedestrians in Manchester city center

• A key aspect of Mobility, Mood and Place is co-designing with older people. This involves understanding and articulating their environmental views and preferences. In the project’s first co-design exercise, a diverse group of older people were invited to participate in a series of interviews, focus groups and accompanied walks to explore impressions, memories, thoughts and views of the city.

• Lucinda Hartley, Landscape Architecture graduate from the University of Melbourne, set up CoDesign together with colleagues, to create a new design methodology that would challenge how design projects are designed and executed. The founders agreed that there was a need for a stronger connection between design / infrastructure and community development and CoDesign was born.

• CoDesign's vision is to create inclusive, empowered neighborhoods. With this facility in Frankston the team are empowering the young people and staff to create a space that truly suits their needs and will enable them to get the most from the facility.

• "While Melbourne may seem a long way from Cambodia, over 1 million Australians experience social exclusion and the social and economic problems caused by urbanization," explains Lucinda. "This includes lack of infrastructure, poor access to services, insufficient public transport, loneliness and isolation, inadequate healthcare, urban heat island effect, too few schools and a lack of parks and other public amenities that foster community life. CoDesign is tackling social exclusion, using design and the built environment."

CO-DESIGN IN URBAN AREAS

Urban Urinals

• In defense of the scatological, peeing in urban areas (or other specific displays of a variety of bodily functions) is something of a way of life.

• Portland has become another in a line of cities experimenting with public toilets in the inner city for use by tourists, downtown denizens, and the large number of seasonal homeless.

• "The stainless steel solar loo would prove economical on maintenance and is functional in all climates with solar powered lighting, heaters and ventilation. The other cities should try the product as it is eco-friendly and would save a lot of money both in the production and usage departments."

• While full scale toilets are an option, these often lead to potential crime issues (or opportunities for policing) and in the case of Seattle, a total and expensive removal after a rash of issues. Perhaps a more simple and decentralized type of facility is necessary.

COLLABORATIVE DESIGN TACKLES HOMELESSNESS

A group designing innovative support systems in Portland, Ore., is identifying better ways of living for the homeless and for communities at large.

• A number of homeless teens can be easily noticed in Portland. When life takes a turn for the worst as a teenager, it’s crucial to know where to go to receive support. Portland Oregon and West Hollywood are attractive locations for homeless teens due to the premiere teen support programs available there. Recently a group of student designers, a foundation, and a university decided to take the West Coast homeless teen story a bit further.

• One common reason for leaving home is the feeling of being an outsider. Enter outside In, Portland’s nationally recognized teen shelter. Outside In brings teens together in a safe environment so that they can literally and emotionally begin to build the feeling of home and belonging from the outside, in.

• Recently outside In partnered with Portland State University's (PSU’s) Department of Architecture to rethink shelter for homeless teens. This included social systems and design thinking for homeless youth—systems that were born out of conversations and collaborations with designers, the teens themselves, and those who help the teens solve problems in their lives on a daily basis.

AN EXHIBIT INSPIRES: COLLABORATIVE DESIGN WITH THE OTHER 90 PERCENT

• PSU Professor Sergio Palleroni, known for his sustainable architecture work with PSU’s premiere program and for his Basic Initiative design projects, recently combined forces with influential collaborators, including Portland’s Mercy Corps, the Portland Museum of Contemporary Craft, and the Smithsonian National Design Museum Cooper-Hewitt in New York.

• Together they drove a comprehensive second iteration of an exhibit called “Design with the Other 90%: CITIES,” which shared 60 urban solutions for people living in temporary settlements across the globe.

• This exhibit, shown recently in Portland, became the perfect ignition and collaborative inspiration for the Portland Teen Homelessness project—it illuminated new ideas used by other shelter projects and provided a focal point for the project as it developed.

PRODUCING NINE POTENTIAL KICK-OFF SOLUTIONS

• Each proposal stands as a shelter “organism” that connects kids to their street families or social tribes of support.

• The shelters stand as social systems designed to connect the teens physically and emotionally, literally and figuratively, through open spaces and points of intersection where they can gather together and feel safe.

OPENING THE INVITATION TO THE PORTLAND COMMUNITY

In the initial public presentation of the nine designs Palleroni said,

“We plan to continue this public design process over the next year with open public design charrettes and workshops. After this public input, our goal is seeing some of these ideas generated in the studio and beyond.”

• The presentation ended on an interesting note. Peter Schoonmaker, who started and who runs Portland’s Pacific NW College of Art’s MFA in Collaborative Design, shared a student project called Blight. This Dwell magazine-like project illuminates something we typically don’t want to look at—homelessness—in beautiful form.