we do and teach co-design
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What is co-design?

 

what is co-design?

This page builds on McKercher, K. A. (2020). Beyond sticky notes. Doing co-design for Real: Mindsets, Methods, and Movements, 1st Edn. The page is updated regularly and continues to be a work in progress. If you’d like to use the diagrams please contact us for permission and a high-resolution version. 📖

As you read, bring your insight, identity and experience with you. You know things about co-design.

co-design is designing with, not for

Co-design brings together lived experience, lived expertise and professional experience to learn from each other and make things better - by design.

Co-design is part of co-production.

Co-design (Figure 1) involves centering care, working with the people closest to the solutions, sharing power, prioritising relationships, being honest, being welcoming, using creative tools, balancing idealism and realism, building and sharing skills. Co-design uses inclusive facilitation that embraces many ways of knowing, being and doing.

Co-design has a ‘co’ bit (e.g. community, co-operation) and a ‘design’ bit. Both parts (community and design) are important, but neither has all the answers.

We break co-design into three parts:

  1. Co-design as a movement

  2. Co-design as processes, mindsets and principles

  3. Co-design as an ever-expanding set of creative and care-full methods and tools

As a movement, co-design challenges the power of people who make important decisions about others’ lives, livelihoods and bodies. Often with little to no involvement of the people whom the decisions will impact.

Five circles sit around a central circle reading 'co-production' - they read co-plan, co-discover, co-design, co-deliver and co-evaluate. Around the edges are four principles: share power, use participatory means, prioritise relationships, and build

Figure 1 Image description: Five circles sit around a central circle reading 'co-production' - they read co-plan, co-discover, co-design, co-deliver and co-evaluate. Around the edges are four principles: share power, use participatory means, prioritise relationships, and build capability.

co-design principles

there are many ways to work together

here are four principles that support effective co-design (described below)

there are four colorful collages with cups of tea, microphones, stairs and hands - reading prioritise relationships, share power, build capability and use participatory means

co-design processes

there is no one-size-fits-all co-design process

Instead, there are principles and processes to apply differently with different people and places. There are culturally-specific practices, too [1]. Figure 2 and the Model of Care for Co-design describe our approach, beginning with building or strengthening the conditions for ethical, necessary and safe (enough) involvement of people who usually haven’t worked together before. We built our approach from generative design and social innovation processes [2] as co-design involves design.

co-designers make decisions, not just suggestions (Burkett, 2012)

Co-design process. A hand-drawn circular diagram reads: build the conditions, immerse and align, discover, design, test and refine and implement and learn. The circle is unending.

Figure 2 Image description: Co-design process. A hand-drawn circular diagram reads: build the conditions, immerse and align, discover, design, test and refine and implement and learn. The circle is unending.

some questions you might ask at each stage

You don’t have to answer all the questions. You’ll have your own, too.

The questions can help you think practically, responsibly, critically, generatively or reflectively. You might use the questions with the Model of Care for Co-design and alongside other tools.

co-design mindsets

Using co-design tools, processes and methods must be paired with a commitment to the mindsets of co-design. Mindsets are ways of being and thinking that support co-design.

We describe six core mindsets that we find helpful to support everyone involved in co-design. We practice these mindsets alongside trauma-informed practice (e.g. offering choice, building predictability, supporting self and collective care).

Mindsets for co-design. The poster reads ‘six mindsets for co-design’ and features a line drawing of a brain. Coming off the brain are six mindsets: elevating lived and living experience

Image description: Six mindsets for co-design branch-off around a brain drawing. Coming off the brain are six mindsets: elevating the contributions and leadership of lived and living experience, valuing many perspectives, learning through doing, practising curiosity, being in the grey and offering generous hospitality. 

differences from other approaches

There are lots of ways to work together.

A colourful collage features scissors, a person working with tools and abstract squiggles

The diagram below describes different levels of community involvement in designing (for example, products, places, services, communications, systems or something else). It also describes who typically has the power to make decisions.

We build from Arnstein’s ladder (1969), from Sanders and Stappers, the design justice movement and make the levels of participation specific to designing.

Access a text-based version of this diagram here.

Levels of participation in design in four columns: design at, design for, design with and design by

Levels of participation in design in four columns: design at, design for, design with and design by

Co-design and human-centred design (HCD) are different. While fuelled by good intentions, design for people often ends up as designer-centred, staff-centred or organisation-centred by implementation when community are rarely involved in decision-making.

Usually, design by communities is already happening. We can find it if we care enough to look. We can choose to act in solidarity not in competition.

”Every community practices the design of itself, independent of expert knowledge.”

Noel et al (2023) Pluriversal Futures for Design Education

co-design and lived experience/expertise

There are different sources of lived experience (see: Safe + Equal)

  • lived experience doesn’t belong to one sector or experience

  • having lived experience doesn’t automatically mean that we can run co-design in a useful, responsible and inclusive way - facilitating and coordinating co-design are skills

  • having people with lived experience involved or in a meeting/workshop doesn’t automatically make something co-design

  • lived experience-led doesn’t mean a project, process or service is inherently just, usable or free from harm

  • while stories matter, elevating lived experience is more than collecting and sharing stories - many stories have already been collected and ignored.

A colorful collage features cut-outs of a cup of tea, a snuggly blanket and abstract squiggles

how to tell if it’s co-design

You might ask these questions (and others) to determine if something is co-design. Remember, just because something isn’t co-design doesn’t automatically make it less useful, inclusive or worthwhile.

Co-design isn’t the only way or always the best way.

co-design as a social movement

To make co-design happen we need systems, organisations and communities to embrace the leadership and contributions of people with lived experience. Doing that requires different ways of thinking and being, which are missing from many teams, organisations and systems.

The table below describes several social movements that are necessary to make co-design a reality and a norm.

From To
Making decisions for people with lived experience Making decisions with people with lived experience
Valuing professional expertise above all Valuing professional and lived experience equally
Seeing marginalised people as a burden Seeing marginalised people as resilient, creative and capable
Colonising, heteronormative and ableist systems Compassionate systems that see and respond to dimensions of difference
Believing that resources are scarce to make change Seeing an abundance of experience, ideas and energy for change
Focusing on ‘consumer’ councils and committees Embedding participation in everyday practice
Rushing to solutions Slowing down to listen, connect and learn
McKercher, K. A. (2020). Beyond Sticky Notes. Doing Co-design for real: mindsets, methods and movements.

conditions for co-design

Even with good intentions, community buy-in and quality facilitation, co-design can be derailed. Here are some conditions that can support co-design.

1 Support and sponsorship 2 Time and money
We need people to endorse and reinforce the approach we're taking and the outcomes we want to achieve. Sponsors and supporters help to build commitment, remove obstacles and overcome resistance as and when it arises. To do co-design we need time and money for:
Facilitation and convening (co-design is not free)
Paying people with lived experience for their time and for any expenses
Investing in approaches (after they have been co-designed)
Supporting lived experience capability and leadership
Prototyping, testing and learning (prior to implementation)
Communicating the work throughout to build commitment
3 Culture and climate 4 Commitments
Supportive culture and climate includes:
Authorising environments from formal and informal leaders
A focus on learning not control
Connective tissue to share learning, failure, success
Support to adopt the mindsets, especially when we regress to old ways of being
Support to develop the skillsets for co-design
Accountability to the people we engage through
co-design (they can call us out)
Commitment to co-design looks like:
Focusing on outcomes (value) over outputs (busyness)
Following through into implementation
Staying committed to elevating the voice and contribution of lived experience
Practising cultural intelligence and widening inclusion
Partnering, not parenting
Sharing decision making, power and attribution
Value and reciprocity with co-designers
Kelly Ann McKercher, 2020

what co-design is not

If you’re not doing co-design, don’t say that you are.


want to know more about co-design? contact us, buy the book or explore paid or free tools


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