Below you will find a talk I gave at a recent conference/bar camp at http://govcampnsw.info
It explains what co-design and human centred design is and shows some examples of how it has been used to shape public services in the UK.
Co-design Workshop Method
I have been attending PDC 2010 the last few days i.e. a conference about participatory design in Sydney.
It has been very interesting so far…both the lectures as well as the hall way conversations between a well represented international audience.
I wanted to post about a workshop I did about innovative participatory design practices held by Peter Dalsgaard and Kim Halskov from Aarhus University in Denmark.
Within this workshop, we did a design challenge using a method they call Inspiration Cards workshops. (A PDF on their method is available).
These workshops are participatory design workshops whereby a group of designers, potential users and subject matter experts can get together to brainstorm design ideas. In these workshops a problem is first identified, for example in the example workshop we did; how can we bring the feeling of the city of Sydney to the interior of a hotel?
Subject/domain cards are first researched and then created and provided to participants. These are tangible cards like business cards with images on them. These cards represented three areas: domain knowledge, locations /contexts for the design solutions and possible technologies.
In this example workshop we were provided with some pictures of the sites of Syndney, including the Botanic Gardens, Sydney aquarium, Opera House etc.
The next set of cards were of hotel spaces eg, restaurant, lobby, hallway, lift.
The third set of cards were “technology cards”. First corresponding videos were shown of mainly interactive art to show some possibilities for technology which corresponded to these cards. For example, the drum head by an interactive artist Murat n Konar:
http://www.muratnkonar.com/id/drumhead/ was displayed as a springboard for ideas about interactive technology.
Participants were then asked to create solutions to the design challenge. Two groups competed during a fixed time period to create pressure.
It was really fun and we came u with some cool ideas… the feasibility of which was debatable but cool ideas nonetheless.
Meet Bar Mate…
Bar Mate hangs out in the bar. When you sit down it says “gday mate!”
You can change it’s avatar by shaking it.
It will give you suggestions of things to do in the city.
If you like what it tells you, you hug it or pat it and if not you slap it.
It uses an algorithm which acts as a recommendation engine using related slap so hug data – so it should be able to give you suggestions about things you might like to do in the city.
So that was one idea…not so serious!
Kim and Peter hypothesised that participatory design workshops have the following key elements some of which they have discussed in their previous academic papers:
+ convergence/divergence
+ tradition/transcendence
+ sources of inspiration
+ degree of structure
+ performance/enactment
+ creation/crafting
+ authenticity/fiction
+ simulation/absraction
+ roles/status
+ money
If you are academically inclined check out their work on PD innovation methods and the PDF about these types of workshops.
About Co-design
Expanding upon my last post about the initiative by EU governments to encourage design driven innovation within the EU, I found some videos explaining what co-design is from UK service design agencies Think Public and Engine. This last post had many examples of this drive within UK and both these videos discuss Service Design work they have done for the UK government.
This first one from Think Public :
Interestingly, within this video after talking about Think Public’s work with the NHS someone describes the rise of ‘co-design’ in the video as the “collaboration movement”.
(NOTE: Having not lived in the UK myself….I can only quote by English friends reaction…”It’s great that the UK government is trying to find new ways to improve their public services ‘cos they definitely need a re-think!”)
This 2nd case-study for Kent County Council by Engine looks at how co-design was used to design local government policy.
Engine helped the Kent local government find new ways to personalise services and help understand the people that they serve.
The people from Kent County Council think that design provides a structured approach for generating ideas and mentioned the value Engine provided by making things tangible, and their ability at identifying and communicating patterns between what a broad spectrum of customers need.
I recently wrote a post with a collection of quotes about design which seem relevant here:
Herbert Simon – “changing existing situations to preferred ones”
Donald Schon – “a dynamic knowing process”
Buchanan, Richard – “the subject matter of design is potentially universal in scope”
Check out the videos:
Another video about the Kent County Council and Engine collaboration.
Thinking About Participatory Design Research : Part 1
Participatory Design (PD) has it’s beginnings in Scandinavia in the 70’s where there was a movement by academics and trade unionists to involve users in the design of the applications that were being designed to assist their work. It aimed to prevent workers from being dis-empowered by the tools and computer technologies imposed on them by their employers. PD provided a way to collaboratively develop technology engaging people in the designs that affect them. Whilst some say it has it’s foundations in Marxist philosophies, I would argue that it also provides a valuable approach to design for commercial organisations today. I also believe that it is very useful for the exploration of new and innovative products, technologies and services, particularly within the emerging design fields of Interaction Design and Service Design.
Participatory design (PD) can be defined as:
“an approach to design that attempts to actively involve all stakeholders (e.g. employees, partners, customers, citizens, end users) in the design process to help ensure that the product designed meets their needs and is usable”
SRC: Wikipedia
PD can be used as a design research approach to help uncover the tacit and latent knowledge and needs of users i.e. knowledge that is implicit, non-tangible and hard to empirically measure. It can help provide another layer of understanding in relation to a persons journey with a product or service than merely a task analysis could. It is particularly useful for understanding and designing interactions over time and is used widely by Service Designers to help identify opportunities for delight and the identification of potential pain points. It is through the undertaking of design activities that cognitive, emotional, and aspirational information can be layered upon an individuals’ journey or scenario as a mechanism for research to inform design.
I have used this technique within design research, whereby I have asked individuals and groups to complete a story board describing a process that they may have undergone recently, for example purchasing a new mobile phone. They are given magazine cuttings and other craft materials to assist them with this activity. This creative activity can help the communication of tacit knowledge, i.e. experiential, emotional and aspirational factors that may not emerge in a verbal account of an experience which tend to be very action and task oriented. Participants are then asked to describe their collaged story-boards, and it is usually interesting to notice all the experiential details that their constructed visual map evokes.
I usually video these sessions and play them back to the visual designers to accompany the artifact that was produced by the participant. I have seen this method used too in group workshops whereby groups explore defined scenarios from the perspectives of key personas. This activity is particularly great for stakeholders who are forced to think outside their usual frame of reference and consider the service or product from their customers’ perspectives. It can also be really effective to have a mixed group of designers, users, and stakeholders involved in a workshop where the activity is done in small representative groups and participants can bounce their ideas off each other resulting in some very interesting discussions and debates.
There is a great article about this on Boxes and Arrows called Making Emotional Connections Through Participatory Design. Interestingly at the bottom of this article I noticed that there was a comment made by Liz Sanders (who is an influential and inspiring thinker about this topic…more about what Liz thinks in a future post) stating that she would use the term “participatory design research” instead of “participatory design” as it needs to be clear that the users are not involved in the design, and that the design is done as an exploratative research activity.
Liz is also interested in design-led research approaches and the use of generative tools to innovate, design the future, and help solve “wicked problems” (Rittel and Webber, 1973). ‘Wicked Problems’ is a term that is used to describe problems that are complex and difficult to solve such as environmental issues. They are problems that are ill-defined which occur at the “fuzzy front end” of the design and innovation process. (This leaks into another topic I will write about shortly looking at how ‘design thinking‘ is being posited as a tool for social innovation and for solving wicked global problems). Liz discusses that the boundary between design and research are merging at the front end of design through the growth of co-design and co-creation activities, and that the role of the designer needs to consequently change.
You can find some presentation videos and some papers Liz has authored in relation to the use of PD or “co-creation” and “co-design” at her site Make Tools.
Below you will find some other PD activity ideas that you may be interested in trying at your organisation:
> Design the box - great collaborative exercise for defining a UX vision
> Collage
> The break up letter (from Smart Design) – This one involves users writing a break up letter about a product or service. It is less design oriented but I thought that it was an interesting design research technique which helps uncover experiential tacit factors.
> Experience mapping & Use of touch-point cards
A financial organisation in Sydney have designed some cards based on this work.
See a video about this at Sydneys’ Service Design Drinks.
Other Related Resources and Tools
> Lots of co-design tools here for Service Design
> Great presentation by Liz Sanders from Adaptive Paths UX Week : Designing with your users
> Liz Sanders video – Co-creation and the new landscape of design at IIT Design Research Conference
> Book: Innovation Games: Creating Breakthrough Products Through Collaborative Play by Luke Hohmann
> Tool: Think Cubes by http://www.metamemes.com/
200 cards for inspiration to help facilitate creativity including some ideation activities
> Mental notes cards by Stephen Anderson can be useful when considering user experience within workshops
I hope you have found this post informative and would love you to comment if you have any thoughts, experience, or resources that may be relevant to this topic. I am hoping to write more about Participatory Design games shortly after I have read my new book “Game-storming: A playbook for innovators, rulebreakers, and changemakers” by Gray, D., Brown, S., and Macanufo, J.