Final journal

Different methods of
Co-design:
How can different decisions in Co-design
affect the outcomes around Europe?
Journal Entry LICA426 Major Research Project Journal
BY MICHAEL SOLAYMANTASH
Spring and Summer Term
Student Number: 30261043
E-mail: M.Solaymantash@lancaster.ac.uk
MA Design Management
2013-14

CONTENTS
Page No.
Abstract 3
Co-design – What and why? 3
Research methods 4
Co-design case studies 4
Co-design‘team-leader’professional approaches 5
Research findings 5
Challenges faced in co-design 6
Conclusion and critical insights 8
References 10
Appendices 12
2

Abstract
In these journal entries, the focus of attention will be around the subject
matter of co-design. Through a range of interviews and online surveys with
stakeholders involved in the co-design process, we will look at the way which
co-design is implemented around Europe.
This co-design project involved Co-design team leaders, design managers,
Council officials and anybody who have partaken or have knowledge about
the co-design methodology. This project will try to question how the different
developments in co-design processes will affect the outcome and decision-making
within a co-design project.
From this, we will go on to use design thinking to help develop critical insights
and recommendations to help designers reflect on their normal practice and
how they need to more capably operate within a co-design project. These
recommendations will hopefully help designers to identify common occurrences
within a co-design process and approach them in a more knowledgeable
manner and hopefully result in producing more desirable outcomes.
Co-design – What and why?
Co-design is a collective creativity as it is applied across the whole span of a
design process (Stappers, 2008). Because of this, co-design is an instance
of co-creation. Co-design has also been known as the collective creativity of
collaborating designers (Sanders and Stappers 2007) although Cruickshank,
Coupe and Hennessy believe that Co-design is a well established approach
to creative practice, especially In the public sector and is used as an umbrella
term for participatory, co-creation and open design processes which all involve
close and detailed interaction with the user of a system they may or may not
be related to. Sanders and Stappers also back up this theory and believe in the
use co-design in a broader sense to refer to creativity of designers and people
who are not trained in design, working together in the design development
process. This process means that the designer’s role as an intermediary
between the means of production and the ‘user’ is becoming less pronounced
(Cruickshank, Coupe and Hennessy, 2009). A spectrum of participation, from
the minimal user input involved in answering a questionnaire, to significant
investment in, and part ownership of, a project (Bradwell and Marr).
A workshop was held in September 2007, which was attended by researchers,
service designers and other interested parties including members of the
government’s transformational government group. The group created a working
definition of co-design, one that recognises the interplay of different factors,
which come together in the participative design process (Bradwell and Marr
2008).
Participation:
It was defined as collaboration, which designs with the people and not merely
for the people. The breadth of input from all parties is wide ranging, ensuring a
multiplicity of viewpoints and building wider community relationships between
those involved.
Development:
It involves the exchange of information and expertise relating to both the subject
of the design processes and the process itself.
Ownership and power:
It’s 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. There is an empowerment of those in a traditional ‘client’
role and serves to create a sense of collective ownership.
Outcomes and intent:
Co-design activities are outcome based and seek to ensure a shared creative
intent between all participants.
A working definition of co-design as portrayed at the workshop (Bradwell & Marr, 08).
Co-design tries to place the involvement of users at the very heart of the design
of a public service. Whereas engagement can simply involve getting people
thinking and talking about a service or policy, co-design implies something more
fundamental: it requires involvement in the design and delivery of the service
itself (Bradwell & Marr 2008). It is, ideally, ‘upstream’, which means that it helps to
identify the kinds of problems to which a service responds, rather than just giving
people a say in the answers to pre-defined problems. It means that the voices
of users are heard and given a position of influence over the development and
application of the service. This implies that in co-design, no viewpoint is afforded
greater legitimacy than another.
This evokes a spectrum of participation, from the minimal user input involved in
answering a questionnaire, to significant investment in, and part ownership of, a
project.
In ‘A ladder of citizen participation’, Arnstein made an explicit link between
participation and power: ‘citizen participation is citizen power’. She described an
eight-rung ladder running from non-participation (and zero empowerment) to full
participation (and citizen control).
3

Administering the theories of Carson (2008) and Good Practice Participate
(2011) to reconsider Arnstein’s idea, it can be illustrated with levels of citizen
engagement. From the beginning in planning a policy, it needs to be considered
what levels to which citizens will be involved, and some projects may entail a
mix of these levels (Good Practice Participate, 2011).
Through online questionnaires, a survey was conducted between 26th June
and 29th July 2014. Design managers, Council officials and Project team
leaders took part in the survey during the four weeks. The questions were
designed to understand stakeholder’s views on Co-design in Europe, their
experiences of co-design projects with a strong active participation and what
insights could be given on the methods used to create a co-design project.
Interviews with five participants of the PROUD project organization were
conducted from the 1st – 21st July as well to look at what preparation and
insight could be given on the way that co-design projects are manifested and
evaluated.
One interviewee attended face-to-face and the others were conducted by
Skype online face-to-face video communication software.
Co-design case studies
Co-design projects have been subject to failure in the past. An example of
this would be Yozgat, Turkey where ‘the process failed at the stage of active
participation from the public because of unimaginative methods to engage them
in the co-design of an urban square (Dede, 2012). Because of this, new kinds
of co-design processes are learning from their mistakes and are inventing new
packages and stronger frameworks to improve both engaging with members of
the public but also analyse the processes that a co-design project entails to try
and learn from the path of the project as much as the results (Jean Schneider,
2014).
Co-design projects can use toolkits that allow them to form a process, which
enables others to be creative in their own way (Lee, 2008). Sanders has
developed tools for participatory design and says that “preschool children
(as well as their teachers and parents) could be useful partners in the design
development process if we give them appropriate tools with which to express
themselves” (Sanders, 2003). Participatory design tools were adopted to
develop toolkits to collaborate with non-designers in order to help them express
their feelings, ideas and dreams about the future (Sanders, 2000). Therefor,
when participants encounter these materials, they can give researchers
valuable information, which can be translated into “meaningful designs”
(Hagenaars and Huybrechts, 2013).
A large problem that can also occur in the case studies is the knowledge of
co-design and being able to engage with a project when a participant does
not fully understand what a co-design project is. The project ‘Into D’mentia’
allows carers to experience in a unique way what it means to have dementia.
By means of a simulation in a surprisingly realistic environment they can
experience the feelings and emotions of someone who has dementia (Into
d’mentia, 2013). They believe that the group sessions provide effective
guidance to visitors on how to adjust their behaviour in relation to the person
with dementia they are caring for.
However, the spectrum of co-design is a more nuanced construction, lacking
some of the linearity suggested by the ‘ladder’ of Arnstein. In this sense, the
question to be asked is, ‘Which co-design elements are appropriate here?’ and
‘What factors may affect the aim and direction of the project?’ rather than a
simple, ‘How can we do as much co-design as possible?’ when approaching a
project. The workshop in 2007 went some way to mapping this methodological
problem. But answering this question, and deciding how to apply co-design
principles, requires the taking into account of practical, as well as theoretical,
considerations. It is this combination of methodological best practice and wider
theory that this thesis was designed to encompass.
Deciding how to apply co-design principles requires the taking into account
of practical, as well as theoretical, considerations. It is this combination of
methodological design considerations and wider theory that this project was
designed to entail.
Research methods
Surveys and Interviews were conducted with stakeholders who have been
involved within co-design project and looks at a range of stakeholder positions
to find methods of building relationships between them. The project also looks
at the role which stakeholders play and who should be invited to participate. The
findings also try to discover what tools partners use and how they encourage
people to work. Stakeholders are also encouraged to be creative and the project
tries to find what challenges they face in Co-design and how the process of
some outcomes is evaluated.
4

This therefor shows that the experience gained from using co-design as
opposed to learning it as a set of rules is much more influential to participants.
Through the “Beyond the Castle’ project conducted in Lancaster, the case study
shows the potential benefits of an open, emergent approach to co-design that
allows participants to express themselves creatively across a whole spectrum
of engagement (Cruickshank, Coupe & Hennessy, 2013). This can be ranging
from lightweight, hands on participation up to creative interventions where
participants concentrate for a long period and generate their own co-design
ideas.
Using social networking technologies new approaches such as online ‘city-citizen’
projects are emerging with a software infrastructure (Cruickshank,
Coupe & Hennessy, 2013). This diverges with story- telling approaches used
to co-design public environments and services in Helsinki which focus on
metropolitan railway experiences (Mattelmaki T & Vaajakallio, 2012)
In practice Co-design approaches vary greatly from being close to consultation
and information gathering to facilitating people in generating their own
ideas and solutions. An example of this would be that scenario techniques
can be used to find interests of different stakeholders, enabling them to
participate in different stages of planning and design (Tress & Tress, 2003). To
‘accommodate a non design orientated population’ the use of visualisation co-design
techniques is well documented (Al-Kodmany, 1999, Sanches & Frankel,
2010).
The positives of co-design have also been shown in the Demos international
survey on co-design (Bradwell & Marr, 2008), in the development of a building
standard in Norway. After twenty five years the inclusive design co-operation
between the municipality and the organisation for disabled people has led to
reshaped recreation areas which are better for everybody, and resulted in a
new building standard that is attracting international interest (Co-design in
Smart Cities, a guide for municapalities from Smart Cities, 2011).
Co-design‘team-leader’professional approaches
Co-design has many differing opinions on what definition can holistically define
its meaning. Leon Cruickshank is an avid co-design facilitator who works at
the imagination lab at Lancaster University. His involvement with the PROUD
project is to help to write the BID and UK lead for the proud projects so is in
charge of the projects PROUD have done in the UK. One of his jobs in the
‘Beyond the castle’ project conducted in Lancaster was to employ designers
to construct structures or processes that allowed non-designers to be creative.
Within the literature and within the project, that would be on the radical end of
co-design. This is a similar sort of view to another interviewee, Francoise Vos.
Francoise Vos who works at Capital D - a corporation for design in the region
in Eindhoven and one of the projects organised is Dutch design week - as
a project manager,she is also involved in European co-design projects and
Proud is one of them. Her view on co-design is that it is a process between all
stakeholders and especially for end users beginning right from the beginning in
the process so really you go in with a blank canvas. You don’t really steer the
participants in a certain direction but everyone is equal in the creative process
and together you come up with new kinds of ideas and perspectives. However,
De Biasio Diego takes a different idealism on co-design. He is the CEO of
Technoport conducting different activities in an incubator with one of those
activities being Fablab. Fablab is a unit used within PROUD project, which
are involved in co-design projects. His view on co-design is an activity that
entrepreneurs are found often facing so they develop something on their own
and in certain moments they go out and try to get feedback from other users or
developers to complement what they have already started to build to become
a finalised product or service. Interviewee Jean Schneider, European projects
coordinator within UPCI, which is a design promotion body, does not have a
preference to what definition is instilled in co-design.“
“An open ended project vs. a closed ended
project. What you are touching on in the project
or through the project is more qualitative
meaning by that you’re more touching on the
relationships that people have with something.”
Jean Schneider quote from Interview (2014)
Research findings
The information provided by the surveys and Interviews highlighted some
interesting statistics and ideals, which are often adopted in co-design
Co-design is a developing method of really tackling the issues of a project from
a more personal and potentially wider perspective of design.
But co-design also gives people the skill set and experience to apply it to
different situations. Knowledge of the process and its benefits could be applied
to new scenarios, as interviewee four Jean Schneider talks about where he
says:
5

It has the potential to be applied other areas of design so that designers can develop
the thinking behind what good design should be. There is no one clear definition of
co-design as each interviewee gave a different level of what they believed was a co-design
project. Further projects will better define how co-design will be executed in
the future and projects are always in progress to contribute to this. Critisising this point
though, the figure below shows that there needs to be an improvement on the qualities
being represented in co-design projects. These qualities are recommended to be in co-design
studies, generating the best conditioned outcomes in the results.
Challenges faced in co-design
Through conceptualizing of the surveys and interviews, there were several
challenges in co-design projects found that was recurring.
Communication is incredibly important to a co-design project receiving quality
outcomes but miscommunication is also a familiar occurrence in co-design.
Designers need to be familiar with the process of a co-design workshop or
else they will not be able to facilitate the project. This is a problem that is
being addressed but the drawback from this is that because there are limited
designers around the world who are familiar with co-design, it becomes a
longer process and becomes costly and time consuming trying to find and pay
for people who can facilitate the project. Packages are available and people
can be taught about co-design but to truly know what co-design is you must
experience it first hand and then to know what a co-design project is really like
and if you are the right person for its facilitation. Some people may be great
designers but not great co-designers. This brings up the issue in co-design
regarding the Elitist behaviour of established designers and also brings to light
the issue of trust, which designers have to show towards participants to find the
solution without following their lead.
There is a problem that designers must overcome from their teachings which
is that they are the ones who lead the team and their opinion matters the most
during the input stage. Some designers cannot fully grasp the notion that they
are no longer the leader of the operation, they begin to affect a project in a
negative way by not stepping back and facilitating participants and instead try
and become too large an influence in the process. Pre-selection of designers
beforehand aims to avoid this problem but limitations on who could be involved
becomes apparent and there is a long and time consuming process of selecting
these people from all across the globe.
Another problem is in some cases, sufficient participation of consumers,
and members of the public not being adequate. This could be due to several
reasons such as the public personas, which means they are too shy or too busy
to join in on the project. Also there could be issues relating to the participation
culture of the society and this culture depends on a series of multifaceted
factors (Dede, 2012). As discussed in the Yozgat case, this is a complex
concern with close investigation and analyses needed to further develop this
study. Another element to this could be opportunity to the public of co-design
and insufficient locations could play a part in exposure of co-design to them
more regularly. This is the case for participant five, Diego who expressed that
the location of activity base should depend on the population and their focal
point of congregation. There is less for people who might want to potentially
contribute towards the project in the less populated outskirts and affects their
public awareness by not being able to allow their work to be exposed to the
general public.
“Now they say they will always use design
and we always have it now in the back of our
head. Now they understand a little bit about the
power it has and this for me is a real success
for me when for the people it is not a question
anymore.”
Jean Schneider quote from Interview (2014)
The chart figure below shows the qualities which survey respondents felt were evident in co-design
projects they had taken part in
6

Location can also cause a disruption when working with external stakeholders
when working on a piece of land, as there is the potential for something to go
wrong regarding an agreement with the landowners. This creates a problem
with the intended outcome as co-design can generate lots of ideas and does
not restrict people to a certain way of thinking. The problem with this is that
an idea, which involves the land, might not be feasible and the final outcome
reached will be fruitless. This then becomes a problem for the organisations
as they now realise that their project will not be able to get the outcome they
wanted because it is not feasible. Because of the outcome not being clear till
the end of the project, there is a problem where people who would be able to
help execute the final proposal may not be involved in the project but also that
their resources and time are not convenient for them. There can be segregation
between the people who want to start the proposal and the people who are
able to start it. This can be related to stakeholder agendas where people do not
invest in the project as leaders would like and decide against helping it because
of concentration on other issues of more dominant concern.
Co-design workshops are slower, more expensive and uncertain about the final
result, which commissioners find repelling but large and complex challenges
really benefit a lot from participants multiple points of view. The problem with
this is that it is hard for the stakeholders to trust in a project that will take up
so much time for what could be fruitless when they can apply user centred
design to the same situation. For bigger challenges, to have more of the publics
view and a more personal approach to the design of a proposal would mean a
more meaningful operation for the public but commissioners want to be able to
examine the results more promptly and cost efficiently which would not be more
beneficial for the public.
Media attention can also play a part in the erection of a project because of the
pressures that the political hierarchy is under. They require a project that will
work which tests their level of trust with the team leader, as they require results.
Part of the job is trying to convince the stakeholders involved that the project
may not get the results hoped for but looks bad from the media perspective.
It can be seen as a large waste of time and money for nothing to show for it,
as you don’t know what the outcomes are going to be. You need trust and to
make them feel better about the project. Creating a separation between the
commissioner and the designer (or public facilitator) could be important due to
the trust issues. This comes from the fact that the project does not have any
results as of yet and creating that separation and finding ways to restore their
faith in the project is important to ensure that all stakeholders are as content
as can be with how the project is going. During Leon Cruickshank’s interview,
he talked about a ‘Beyond the castle’ meeting, which used imagery to show
that things were happening in the project and that they were working towards
something even though they still had yet to figure out what that was.
“One thing we found out afterwards that we did
but was very useful was the use of high quality
images was found to be very beneficial so
there would be senior people in the council who
couldn’t come to an event but they could get
some nice images of people really having fun
and really engaging in an event and that calmed
them.”
Leon Cruickshank quote from Interview (2014)
This approach had created an almost façade that the project was moving in a
direction when in fact it was still at the messy stages of co-design thus making
parties more satisfied.
The problem with longer projects is that they lose momentum, which is vital
in a co-design project to build on to the next event or what the facilitator has
planned next. If a project loses this it can weaken the energy and drive of the
task. Visiting people more often and in a shorter space of time creates a faster
and more dynamic project on which to build momentum on projects. There is
always a pressure for momentum in a project to make sure that it is always
moving and is extremely important to conduct this in a fast moving and dynamic
timeframe.
Due to the fact that momentum is so important, it creates the dilemma of time
management becoming a problem because if the project is not facilitated
properly, the schedule will not be punctual. This in turn can cause problems
for the shape of the workshop but also for the convenience of the other
stakeholders who may find it unsuitable in their own time frame.
This is a common occurrence in co-design as it is hard to take into account the
many variables that go on in day-to-day existence around a co-design project
and it is hard to anticipate these arbitrary diversions.
7

Conclusion and critical insights
In this thesis we have attempted to investigate the potential within co-design
that will help participants to remove the metaphorical shackles of their way
of thinking. To overcome the challenges faced across Europe, which prevent
co-design from evolving into a strong collaborative force used to create more
personal and effective products for the future. We have also shown that this
can be difficult for stakeholders who are used too more predictable, controlled
interventions where they are in a hierarchical position of an elitist influence.
The recommendations that developed in this project were intended to challenge
the stakeholders way of thinking about not only co-design projects but
limitations in their own culture and to try to identify similarities between co-design
projects. These recommendations were also intended to promote active
reflection by designers on their processes and assumptions and how these
relate to the assumptions and creative processes of others.
It is through this type of reflection (and responding to these reflections) that
new types of co-design processes and co- designers will develop, ensuring
all co-design participants have the opportunity to make their best possible
contribution in co-design processes.
There remain a number of critical issues within co-design as an approach
that are both inclusive and that result in better outcomes. These centre on the
definition and recognition of good outcomes (that will be specific to a particular
context) and also to the interplay between designers disciplinary training,
methods and wider co-design principles.
To create co-design, as a more fashionable vision in media would make it more
popular in mainstream organisations, drawing attention to a positive vision of
co-design.
Also trust is a large factor in choosing to do a co-design project and
implementation at an early age would not create an enthusiasm. Hence
making it more fashionable through the use of spokespeople or positive media
attention would make implementing co-design at an earlier age more possible if
participants are interested in the project. In relation to this, testing a co-design
project out with projects where there is less risk would help to instil more
confidence in governing bodies to attempt a project like this if they see positive
results. Creating small scale workshops to develop spokespeople for co-design
would be a relatively quicker method of gaining popularity amongst the design
community than current methods of gaining interest and would generate more
devotion to the idea of co-design.
A way to generate more co-designers in mainstream businesses is be to
create workshops across the globe to discover which designers are good co-designers.
This gives the opportunity to generate more co-designers who are
capable of facilitating a project reducing cost and time whilst finding someone
who can facilitate a project. Locating designers within a specialist field would
help a co-design project by contributing their specialist opinions to work out
details or provide experienced information on related subject matters.
Technology in the future will hopefully play a part in bringing people and
organizations closer as well as co-design projects and gives the opportunity to
create global workshops operating in real time. As well as this, it also helps to
speed up communications and maintain relationships between stakeholders.
This would potentially mean that locations of activity bases become less
important as participants can communicate and generate their ideas from
anywhere and are not limited to commuting to workshops.
Co-design apps and online workshops can be created to gain more potential
participants and also widens the scope of where a co-design project can reach.
Communication over the web can also contribute to projects by creating an
online timeline of what is happening in projects so participants can revisit
workshops and contribute with their own ideas online. It also means they can
keep up momentum outside of the workshop hours or if they do not attend.
Another observation of maintaining momentum would be to facilitate smaller
and shorter time frames in workshops would ensure momentum is maintained
which will keep the participants in the rhythm during the project.
In addition to mentioning collaboration, creating a hierarchy of groups with
somebody whose had experience with similar projects and a negatively
challenging participant could potentially help navigate the challenged
participant towards the right direction for the project.
With regards to the specialists, using people who have experience in a
particular field, which is related to the co-design subject, could result in much
more relevant and personal results to something, which are explicitly linked to
their profession.
In light of these potential considerations in co-design it is important to
understand in more detail how we can create personal communication
from long distance so that co-design can retain its intimate nature between
participants and other stakeholders. Looking at technologies and what future
methods of communication in future society, can help to establish a meaningful
connection so that long distance projects to become a success.
8

In light of these potential considerations in co-design it is important to
understand in more detail how we can create personal communication
from long distance so that co-design can retain its intimate nature between
participants and other stakeholders. Looking at technologies and what future
methods of communication in future society, can help to establish a meaningful
connection so that long distance projects to become a success.
Another consideration would be the trend of co-design and to what extent can
it be made a ‘must-have’ accessory for new generations and organizations
so that they adopt this style of design. New trends and phases in generations
creates new opportunities to grasp these possibilities and convince us to
re-evaluate what are the important aspects of design which need to be taken
into consideration. Global warming is a prime example of this where materials,
environment and other mitigating factors can affect the appeal of a product if it
is not beneficial to use in a society where energy use and material wastage are
under stricter observation.
More personal products are the way forward in creating products that we need
as opposed to products that we want and identifying this change in mentality
in design is very important in my opinion to create a better understanding of
what societies need and how we can apply design to them. Co-design has the
potential to help create more meaningful products but also to establish stronger
communities, which can help to build societies creating a cycle of growth in
communities. Taking these things into consideration would go some way into
evolving into not just an efficient but an effective culture of design.
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APPENDICES
Interview questions and response ranges
1. Jan Glaas – 1st July 2014
Who are you? What do you do (what’s your job)?
I’m Jean Schneider and I’m and the European projects coordinator within UPCI which is a design promotion body. Its probably guild as far as I know in France because we were created 30 years ago to promote design
towards French businesses but economical factors in the broad sense so institutions as well and promote French design approaches so that was our original mission and we more or less still stick to it and within that
small entity we happened to be involved in a few European projects and I’m quoting our contribution to those projects so that my current role. Besides that I am a designer by training and also by practice so I don’t only
do the administration of the projects but sometimes a really get actively involved in them. Especially in proud because although we subcontracted and now challenge the co-design work I was very much involved in
monitoring what they were doing and eventually contributing to some of the activities as well saying like ‘we should do this in that way or this material should be used in that way’ etc but now I’m purely doing administra-tion.
Could you give me an example of where your conflicting view might have applied to a co-design project?
Well I wouldn’t say it was conflicting views it more the fact that I don’t take everything in the field for granted so for instant the challenge were running in the bree region which was focused more or less about ageing, for
instant I kept a rather tight eye on the personas that were defined and the kind of visual materials that was attached to that because as you know I think the basic of our job is that every picture, shape, whatever form in
the generic sense conveys meaning. That’s our expertize so in another case I would say ‘I think this image is misleading’ or can be misinterpreted by the people around the table so ‘I’m happy to see it there’ or ‘I would
prefer this kind of presentation being used to avoid prejudice’ in some cases or to ‘open up for all this kind of population such as immigrant and things like that’ so that’s one thing. Another thing could be to talk about
the graphics and talk about the contents of the material that we used provide and the way we do the announcements as well so its not conflicted its just saying that because I have some experience in that activity I
sometimes question what you propose not questioning the competent I think we can be sharper here rather than use a little bit standard assumptions so that’s not conflicting really, but can end up with some conflicts as
I disagree with some people quite strongly but I think that part of the job.
You talked about not being prejudice in your projects and there could be cultural differences, could you say that diversity is a big part of co-design then?
I think that diversity is a key issue but there are two ways to look at it. There’s the diversity that we include in the discussions that we should include to be polite that says ‘All the people should be represented all nation-ality
and look. There’s this kind of common acceptance of ‘Okay there should be diversity’, which is true towards an extent but the way to gain this and to make the diversity effective in the project is a bit more complex
because you might bring people from different backgrounds around the project yet the mind-set is so framed by the same expectations or representations of what is good or what is a good society or what is a good
neighbourhood or what is a good house, what is a good city. The people might look diverse in terms of gender origin history etc yet they have exactly the same mind set so you don’t go very far with that.
Then there is the other diversity which is trying to bring to the table people who actually might potentially be unpleasant or even threaten your project because they are going to challenge your conceptions and might
even challenge the process. I think that there are two layers of diversity that you at least have to have knowledge because I think that most co-design processes (and that may be where we depart a little bit from the
Anglo-Saxon culture but at least a little bit in the southern countries are quite important. I think it’s the same up there but it not said in the same way) we all as ordinary people we are all extremely aware of what is ex-pected
from us and who has the really power. I think when you run a project with stakeholders that are usually institutions of course people are aware that is an asymmetrical situation. This is also the challenge of diver-sity.
You might bring people who threaten your project its not only saying the core that would be unhappy or the youngsters that would challenge you its also the institution that would challenge you because if someone
comes from the institution at a senior level says ‘actually I don’t believe in this’ your dead as well.
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How could you facilitate something like that?
I think it’s very difficult. If I had the answer that would be great. I think it’s very difficult because at this point I see different things. First of all (and this comes from discussion I try to have with people who have been
involve di t he project so I’m running a little bit of what you are doing just because I have to develop a tools kit so I’m talking to people who have been though some of the projects) I think there are different means to
facilitate this. The first thing is to select the people rather than make it plainly open. It doesn’t mean that its always the same group of people that go’s from the beginning of the project to the end and its doesn’t mean
that when I say its not open doesn’t mean you cannot open up on certain phases. You can open the doors I.e. for a workshop or presentation or exhibition or something like that). But a project is first of all in my view like
a cruise. Its going to last very long, and not everybody has the capacity to stand the length of the project. Some people are able to burst with energy for a week and their really necessary at the moment of the project
you really need these people who come with a lot of energy who throw things on the table who discuss or challenge etc. But you also need people (like in any team) who ensure the continuity, who are going also to at-tribute
and your going to say well actually we’ll go for the second one. Not that the first one is necessarily bad or not that the third one is unfeasible its just that within the resources that you have they will be too difficult
to manage. So as the people were going to do that might not be the people who are going to contribute inside the sessions. There might be a slightly different team but they’re going to ensure the continuity of the pro-ject,
which doesn’t mean they are going to ensure that you reach the result because everybody has a result in mind beforehand. Everybody has an idea of how it should be. How the neighbourhood should be how the
garden should be how the healthcare should be everybody has ideas. And hope that the project is just going to deal with the technicalities of their idea. What is difficult is that the project is never going to do that and its
purpose is not to do that. I’ve done both sides. So you need people who are going to say ‘ I don’t know where were going but were going somewhere for sure’ and this is a very complex and difficult attitude and I think
that you need these different personalities all though the co-design process. The co-design process makes this even more necessary in an ordinary design process because ordinary design processes have this factor.
You have some people in the business world for the project of some people, against the project some people who have a time line and say ‘well we need to have this in three weeks or six month because we need to
have this on the market. I know we have something that is designed for summer either you have it in the shelves in may or next may but your certainly not giving a timeline where you say ‘we need to have this in Octo-ber
November December’. So they’ll pour that pressure on. So I think you always find this in different ways expect that in the co-design process because the team itself that challenges require or have the potential of
being more conflicting. All these roles become more critical.
How are you involved in Proud, what project or activities?
I think that in PROUD I haven’t been very much involved in the sense that we’re a rather small organisation. We had a challenge like Lancaster had or Eindhoven. I think that the specificity of our challenge was that it
was addressing private businesses so it was not directly dealing with the public sphere. But in a way it had the public dimension because it touched upon tourism in a small region and in a way we were dealing with the
network of very small business basically one or two persons business except for a few SME’s. Not addressing each business individually but rather trying to look at synergies. That was maybe the main difference ap-plying
our project and the other projects. For me the challenge was for me to figure out if this open innovation or co-design (I would except any definition of that at the moment as long as there is a little bit of mess in the
process) were these feasible to produce some results for networks of small business because a lot of co-design or open innovation that comes from the enterprise side is for these very large companies and I know that
it doesn’t cascade that easily towards SME’s because the dynamics of the results are profoundly different. So to me it was also a test was can we bring something. If we can bring something to microbusinesses then
ill know something better about the issue.
What does co-design mean to you?
There are different aspects there. I would say It means an open ended project vs. a closed ended project. Closed ended project is a typical design project where the assignment is well defined so ‘design me this or this
interface new car or this new whatever or improve this existing design or design my brand or weave graphics for this application’ so there I would say the assignment might be captured in those terms but profoundly
what you are touching on in the project or though the project is more qualitative meaning by that you’re more touching on the relationships that people have with something. That’s in a way what you want to touch upon.
I think in design it’s always there expect that in co-design maybe not. It is latent in the standard design project. That becomes more explicit. I think its more explicit because if people require or think of co-design and
want to trigger a project about, I don’t think its because they like the idea. Its both because they visualise ‘Nobody holds the answer’ and there is a need to do something in common. Or you can say well ‘we’ve had
so many issues with the acceptance of the decision that the society doesn’t except any more’ then an expert comes and says ‘destroy these five houses and build this kind of building and make a public square with
this kind of games for the kids in that place’. So somehow society has changed and people might say ‘We can’t work like this any more.’ So that’s one of the triggers and that one is interesting if people say ‘well we
truly need to develop something with the people.’ The answer, which is sometimes a bit connected and is a bit cynical, is ‘Why suddenly co-design becomes trendy?’ Its historically connected to the fact that there is no
money and its cheaper ultimately to send designers and to put a few people to work around the table to give their ideas about the project, then to have the experts who are going to do studies and tell you what to do. Its
not black and white but I’m pretty sure because I’ve talked with people in municipalities that there is a strong correlation between the lack of public funding and the call for co-design because in a way you don’t pay the
time of the people who contribute. The fact is you ask designers who are rather cheap people to run a process in which they find value and ultimately who generally find ideas which have pre-acceptance so it’s a kind
of win win thing (although I don’t like this win win because there never a lose lose but okay) there is a value there for all parties. But I think its good that designers accept to get involved into that even if they don’t make
much money. Because something’s that makes you happy in life and have more value and are not translated in financial income then this is great. So for me these are the triggers at the moment that the necessity of co-design
that drive the trend of looking at co-design as an interesting alternative to design.
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What are the most important qualities of your co-design management style?
I think it’s to be clear with the issues all the time. That’s the first thing. And especially if I had to work with projects that deal with the public sphere or public interest it’s also to acknowledge the prejudice of the people
who’s ideas or options cannot be embedded in the final project. In the project that is realised. To me that is one of the most interesting issues to consider which means also ‘How do you discuss’ (And I have not answer
or experience about that) Most of the projects are always initiated by the institutions not by the people. But the people didn’t wait for us and need to be able to organise themselves and organise a comity which says ‘We
are unhappy y with this proposal’ or ‘We don’t like the idea that you are going to change the neighbourhood’ So they don’t need us you’ve always been able to do that and de-flow solution and challenge proposals. They
didn’t wait for co-design when they wanted to de-flop alternatives to a proposal. Institutions have lots of means to impose their choices. They are able to implement things without waiting for the people and they have
lots of regulations and impose things. I don’t see this as negative. Because institutions represent the public good. Public good is not the sum of the private interests. Its very important to explain this to the people for
instance if we are going to put people around a table. What I see happening at least here is ‘My interests is there’ and no one will say ‘My interest is there’ etc and it’s a kind of scapegoat of being hostile without heart.
Truly administrative. If you go and talk with civil servants and listen o them they say ‘were not here to solve your problems jean or the problem of your neighbour’ who are actually completely conflicting and both of you
forget that there is a law and the law has not been decided by me and the civil servant, the laws has been decided by the community. For instance you cannot just go out and have parties at 2 in the morning and disturb
everyone or you know the law is that you cannot leave your car in the middle of the street then go home and cook a couple of eggs and go back. The public interest is defined and goes beyond the private interest.
Institutions are also made of that and sometimes its really necessary that they impose things so for instance they can deal with the long term so for now we are planning for the next 20 years for instance and certainly it
means you will be evicted or the school shifts from that place to that place but yes fair enough that’s exactly the job. I might be very unhappy because it was very convenient where the school was being next door to my
kids but if nobody is going to say no there’s a reason behind that and you try to explain the reason behind that, we’ll end up with guns in every house. You know it breaks down to private interests conflicting. I think the
problem is truly to bring these different cultures at the table and my role there is to mediate between these to which means mediate between time of the long term of the institutions but the short term of the people who
say ‘you need to solve this happening in my back yard now’ because for the last six months I think I’ve a case in the city very far from where I’m living where there are Romanian people who just settle widely in a piece
of land and have been settled there for the last 3-4 months and they packing more people in, there no water there, no toilets so of course you know they go to other places to pick up water. Of course they shit and they
pee right in front of people. They burn copper or wires to sell the copper. They don’t necessarily steal the copper but find it and they burn it so that was a nice little neighbourhood of people living in the street and they
are not necessarily very hostile. They aren’t racist and even help them in the beginning. And they go to me and they say now this is really an issue. It stinks, we get the smokes of this plastic burning overnight, we have
to live with our windows closed and I live in the south so its really hot at the moment so there’s a short-term issue I think but how can we solve that?
I think the time issue is very difficult to manage in co-design project because it’s the time issues of the institutions of the regulations versus the need to solve something that is really felt as urgent because you cant
anticipate that. You could blame the institutions who say ‘you should have thought three years ago that Romanian people would come in the city and find this piece of land that is abandoned and sell some toilets and
water etc but nobody anticipated that. This will be for me an interesting co-design case. Extremely difficult I mean ill probably break my teeth on that but yes. Can we bring something to these kinds of issues?
Tell me about the project you have managed.
Other projects I have been managing have had very little to do with co-design I guess but I’ve been in the last year supporting small business in integrating design so it goes a little bit beyond advocacy so I would say
technical support or how to formulate how to procure properly how to find a designer these kind of things. This is mostly what I’ve been doing. And I’m involved in a few other projects that have to do with more within he
institutions. How to better integrate design for instance and innovation support and things like that. More id say with the institutions. Are better integrate design and innovation supports that.
Did you have to cooperate with any external people to make sure that the project would run smoothly?
Yes. First of all because we would procure if we had to run other projects we would still procure to a design consultancy the execution of the project. Which is also part of management but we would still manage it and
now I would say our manage rather firmly because I’ve had more experience, because I’ve benefitted also from the experience of the other proud partners so it would be more strict in terms of management of the pro-ject
other than just subcontracting and leave the design consultancy running it.
Would you consider the project to have a more passive or active participation (where active stands for intense communication with designers)?
Do you mean looking at the quality of the communication between the parties or looking at the experience of the different parties have with the topic before?
The qualitative communication between the parties.
I think that’s certainly a key issue and my view nowadays would be at least in my context for sure is to look for social occasions. Less formal meeting. You need them but they are a kind of ritual to make sure that we are
working. I think that the real work especially when you are looking for something that is highly qualitative happens because we realise that we share rather similar values, which doesn’t mean that we share the same
values. All participants should consider that dialogue is a key issue and the best way to check that you share these values is to have dinner together or to break up have a beer. It cannot happen within the time of the
workshop so I would look for the opportunities to have social events. Not as a counter power. A small group of people who would shadow projects, predating the other one. But making sure that you have between all the
stakeholders a few people who trust each other. You can disagree with people you trust but if you disagree with people you don’t trust then you are in the conflict. There snot reason to stay together around the table. I
don’t see any reason why I would stay with someone I don’t trust or with whom I disagree. I would just go out or go to the beach. Why spoil your life? It’s so frustrating. Unless you have a contract but if you don’t have a
contract in a co-design project. You’re begging people to come.
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How did you go about your co-design activates, what processes or tools did you use.
We used very classic service design type of tools with a little bit of tools to set up the context like stakeholders mapping, swat analysis, surveys and things like that so that to set the context. Then to drive the process
was more different mapping tools like ‘describe an ideal stay’ or ‘describe your last vacation’ or ‘bring in personas to help people identify and tell something which will be the ideal service for you. So I would say nothing
really specific. What I learned from that is that it’s good to very carefully prepare the activity. It’s extremely important but it’s also extremely important to look at what is going on rather than look at the results. That’s
maybe something where I departed a little bit from the design consultancy. The design consultancy was gathering all the material and then was evaluating the results and I was more interested and actually I fought a
little bit with them about it was more important to look at he dynamics and to look at what the words might really mean. I think people for instance (that would make Leon extremely upset but he knows it) people are not
creative. Most of the people are not creative. Everybody has more or les the same thing like when you ask people what your ideal house they all want a door, a roof, windows, a bedroom, a living room a kitchen and
a bathroom. You don’t see anyone saying well actually I want to be under the sky or picking anything extreme. When they give a second thought to it like ‘What would be your dream life’ then they might describe it but
when you tell them what should be in your house, most of the people have the same thing. I don’t blame them for that. That’s a necessity because if everybody had completely different representations behind the word
‘house’ there would be no towns. If another person built an idea house they would be squatting it would be a bit challenging. I rather look at it as a recipe. But what is interesting for me is to look at the little differences
that people are going to put at some point and these differences point really at what deeply motivates them. So I don’t care because (to say it simple) people say ‘okay everybody wants a house or a flat like this like
90% of people we invited around all the stakeholders decided and we send it them with an optimal compromise and they agree on that so that’s really what they need and I think that’s not true. I think you need to look
at what does it say profoundly behind that which means taking the distance from the output, not looking strictly at the output but looking at especially in my view the clients. The little thing that is a bit odd. Looking a little
bit at what is a bit outside because this in my view my open to the real challenge. The challenge that we might have failed but you haven’t been able to form relate and again I don’t expect the people to be able to define
the problem. Some are able but it will always be a few so I rather look or try to look at these little gaps and try to figure out if people at the event out of all this could it make sense could it make sense of the issues that
we are trying to recap. Afterwards if you want to discuss this again we can discuss it if needed.
How did you plan the schedule for a project? What variables came into light?
The project had a timeline that was set by the key stakeholders, which were these small business and these small businesses because they are operating in the field of tourism there are six months every year in which
they are not available. From late may until mid October they are very busy because they like bed and breakfast or small hotels and thing like that so it’s the only moment of the year where they have most of the visitors
because that region is near Paris. That was the time where it was very difficult. The project lasted two years and I think that was a mistake in the sense that the momentum was really difficult to build. If I had to run
something again I would do it at a much more compact manner not to lose the momentum and then to go and see the people more often so that’s in a way I think the a mistake we’ve made. Well one of the big mistakes
I’ve made. Because it was a lack of experience and a lack of understanding of the dynamics.
How did you motivate your participants to join in?
Well I didn’t need to be so much in touch with recruiting the participants because one of the project partners were head of the network so this person was also bridging with the few businesses and us. Even though
there was this person we did make a couple of meeting in the beginning to present the process, to explain it etc. What we realised was that explaining the process the way we did it was quite abstract for the people.
What also the reason why we did a video so that if we had to convince people about what goes into the design workshop and what’s the kind of output needed etc. Because when you start explaining it with words,
either it becomes a bit theoretical or it falls at the level of the anecdote. Then people say ‘Yes but brainstorming…yeah! What do you call co-designing? Brainstorming, games, creative’ many projects nowadays have
these creative activities so suddenly they think ‘what’s this about calling it co-design and these consultancies have paid a lot to sell us something that we know already?’ so I think its very difficult to explain really and I
think we failed a bit in that as well. Tried to make it more sophisticated and it’s confusing to the outside because I think there’s a lot of sophistication but the sophistication is behind. We need to be encouraging of the
activities and the analysis in the evaluation that we de-flop all the time but you can go round a table with plenty of post its or magazines to cut or Lego figures and say okay now imagine the ideal afternoon or in the park
or something like that. We don’t need to discuss this you just need to put the people around and tell them well playing is something enjoyable. Don’t think more than that just enjoy it and do it.
What type of contingency planning did you do for the project?
That was more when we prepared the application for co-financing because the project was partly funded by proud and we had to look for co-financing that’s why we focused on ageing because there was the opportuni-ty
to get to answer to a call from someone from industry on aging. Actually that came (the issue of tourism came) partly because I had met some people who were interested in design and were project managers focus-ing
on territorial de-flopment and to me that was also something interesting so focusing on rural areas because France is a very big country with a lot of rural areas a=with a few main cities and a lot goes on towards the
cities and less goes for the smaller cities or villages. So its interesting doing something for rural areas so we started to discuss and in terms of proactive things I think I proposal we discovered a little bit about tourism
and then I had an intuition, I propose to them to consider was to not look at tourism simply in terms of selling nights which was the original project. We were thinking could design help us to sell more nights In the sense
of could we have a better communication strategy and I said well I think with the issue of aging and especially the call of the misère of industry was the baby boomers as a generation which had changed the vision of
aging that we used to have not only elderly people but the people who are still healthy, quite wealthy actually compared to the rest of the population, who feel young although they are in their sixties but its not because
they retired that they fall the elderly population. I said there is an opportunity to investigate a change of values and therefor to look at tourism not in the same way but what would be another form of residents and that
where we started to work together and I thought of the idea of saying ‘well we should look at hospitality in a completely different way, look at council things, look at this house exchange which not only for economical
motivation that’s also because some people say ‘well why go to hotel?’ I want to have a different experience and also look at the economical issue because although many of them a wealthy if you have a close look at
statistics then in a city like Paris then a lot of significance in terms of market. Significant market of people who have low pensions and cannot afford to go for real holidays. But because area we’re working for its about
half a kilometre outside of Paris so you can got there with a cheap ticket on metro because its still part of the great Paris region so you have reduced fares. So I try to weave together these different elements. I say well
‘maybe that will be the plural of our project to investigate it for the study. That was out second proactive thing it was really to put on the table things that people didn’t put things on the tables and they were looking a
tourism as these conventional forms of ‘we had nights we want some more nights and better’ so the first thing you say is ‘well let redo a leaflet lets redo a website lets redo the booking’ something like that. That was the
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tourist approach. The requirements of the ministry to de-flop new services or products for an ageing population that has new values. To me that was also ‘not everybody’s wealthy, what do we do for the people who are
in their sixties with not much money and live in cities like Paris where they cant afford to go out so to give you an idea, 50% of the women who are more than fifty in France don’t go on holiday because they don’t find
anything that suites us and then when you go deeper into the studies we try to cross different things because most of these women have actually another person they have to take care of, typically an elderly parent like
and not necessarily their mother or father it can be an elderly neighbour of some type that they take care of and this person might not be able to really travel or travel in conditions where it becomes extremely expen-sive.
Or they have to take care of grandchildren. So they don’t find any tourist offer that suits them. Of course it doesn’t look very much if you think women over 50 and only 40% or 50% of them but if you look at Paris
suddenly it become more than a couple of hundreds of people. So all this brought together helped to formulate the project and helped to formulate the help for the whole thing.
What was the most challenging aspect about your project?
I think the analysis of the outcome of the workshops that was a difficult phase and a critical phase and the other thing that was complete failure was that our first kind of workshop the second co-design because we had
two sessions and each had two co-design workshops so we had four co-design workshops actually in the project. So we decided to embed the offer in something concrete and it needed a graphic design support to
present the offer, promote it etc I asked a graphic designer to make us a proposal that could be tested afterwards and I think he did a great job honestly but some of the people not all reacted very negatively because
the codes he was using were not the codes they expected and that’s also a lesson that I learnt when I was talking in the beginning about the representations I should have discussed the issue of representation at the
beginning and not waited for the crisis it created because people were puzzled because they liked the thing and said that these are really nice pictures. He made pictures he was not representing the countryside in the
usual it was not presenting in an ugly way but it was different pictures, different map and things like that and I think they really didn’t know what to do with that. Its not that they were hostile in the sense that they don’t
like it, they ended up saying ‘we don’t like’ it but when we interviewed them and presented the thing individually they liked it and said oh that’s great oh we like this wording and we like this graphics or we like this typog-raphy
we like the picture’ but they didn’t know what to do with that. So that also in terms of evaluation what was very difficult to have to deal with a negative reaction so something which I knew was truly relevant was
really interesting to the project and the challenges of the project
What was the most successful aspect about your last project?
I think the most successful aspect of the project is that some of the partners that were involved who are the people who are involved in territorial de-flopments. Now they say they will always use design and we always
have it now in the back of our head. It doesn’t mean that we will use it in each and every project but they say okay now we understand a little bit about the power it has and this for me is a real success for me when for
the people it is not a question anymore. This is the first thing. The second thing is that there were new offers and new services that were de-flopped that are not new individually but it was the first time that that region
had different business that they cooperated to de-flop something meaning that people who get bed and breakfast have de-flopped something with say tourist gardens and taxi driver and that can buy a comprehensive
stay where you come out at the train station and the taxi picks you up and you come to the bed and breakfast and you get your nights and food and whatever and if you want to go to the garden the taxi comes and
picks you up at that time and picks you up etc and details like this and this had never happened before.
Could co-design be implemented at an earlier age?
No I don’t know. I’m not convinced no because I think ultimately if you are to do co-design its because you have an attitude towards that and an interest towards that. You could provide more information etc that’s great
but if ail ok at the French context where education is extremely authoritative it would be such a revolution so its not the age that is really important its really the attitude that we have in the institutions in the school in the
businesses or whatever that I think is key. The age I don’t think is the answer because you have in France I guess you have the same in the UK you have some alternative schools but the kids have a much more proac-tive
attitude towards the way they asked and become involved in the things and are less passive. Suddenly we have enough time now to look at the effect of this and the people who come out of this kind of education
are usually have a sense of autonomy which is strong which probably gives them a better professional life and are more open etc. that’s really the attitude to promote but if you break co-design to a set of tools it might
be no different than mathematics or Latin or the Italian lessons that you might have taken and they just enter your mind and they come out from the other side because you learn that for the exam but if you don’t put
them into practice and doesn’t transfer your attitude it will be a set of tools and you wont use them. Do you use Latin? No? I don’t know maybe you had Latin at school but if you look backwards lots of things that you’ve
learned are rather useless. Although I could easily disagree with what I’ve just said because I think they’re useful to shape you or to broaden your view on things but the transformative aspect of co-design, I think we
cannot be conveyed by just learning the technicalities.
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Have you worked on a co-design project that didn’t receive the outcome that was hoped for? What happened?
I would say in a way that the project we have been running in proud didn’t get the outcome that was expected. If I look at the expectations of the people of different stakeholders that people who were literally hoping that
they would sell more nights and I’m not sure that ever happened. Other things have happened which I found and if I look at a few other projects on which I’m keeping an eye on or which I sometimes a little bit involved
through one meeting or things like that, I think the other projects tend to have an outcome. But it would be very difficult to figure out especially with projects that involve the institutions. Providers of the final resources,
they not only finance the projects but ultimately that’s it for instance if it was hospital then the social security would pay for the co-design study but they also pay for the implementation of the results if any. Something of
these kind of cases I’ve been following, if the budget is not directly attached to the project (if its not very small) its difficult to say because the people who are running the project are not necessarily those who are going
to implement it. Like if you re plan for a hospital, if you have like £50.000 aside for redesigning and using co-design to redesign the entrance of the hospital or waiting room or something like that, you have the money
there but if you redesign the whole patient flow you need to reshape the hospital interior so you might run the co-design project and you might design he thing but (at least in France and many other places), the people
who are going to say ‘OKAY no we adopt this were going to rebuild the hospital to have a major intervention in this hospital and maybe in the others’ the amount of money that is involved there is so big and that is usu-ally
inconvenient a different unit that’s going to deal either that and that unit might have other priorities that might jeopardise your project. I think a project that had the outcome implemented on which the small budget
was attached to it from the very beginning so its not completely answering your questions because I’m not so sure but maybe that’s how I can contribute to your work.
2. Francoise Vos – 3rd July 2014
Okay well my name is Francoise Vos and I work at Capital D in Eindhoven as a project manager. Capital D is actually a corporation for design in the region here in Eindhoven and one of the projects organised is Dutch
design week. Maybe you’ve heard of it and Dutch design awards. It’s the major project we organise. Besides that we have two European projects and Proud is one of them and that’s all about co-design.
Capital D is league partner in Proud so there actually doing al the organisation, administration with the European union. And with that concern we one of the partners in proud so we all connect also regional challenge
and we apply co designing sessions and lectures and everything.
What does co-design mean to you?
Yeah its really for me it’s a process between all stakeholders and especially for end users. Right from the beginning in the process so really you go in with a blank canvas you don’t really steer the participants in a cer-tain
direction but everyone is equal in the creative process and together you come up with very kind new ideas and perspectives.
How do you feel your philosophy towards co-design is different from other people’s philosophy?
There’s a lot of confusion between user-centred design and co-design and that’s sometimes a fine line but there’s a lot of confusion there but lot of times designers ask users for their opinion and in our opinion that’s
more user centred design I think co-design is rally when you all start blank on a table and start designing. I think that’s the way to go.
What’s your role & responsibilities in co-design projects you’re involved with?
We have several projects we did one here with the station because it was not very well perceived so we kind of organised teams to work on that with the cyclists, with council, with people who lived there, people who
come in and out of the station so its more like an organisation role that we have.
What were the main problems with that project?
The fact that there were lots of landowners. Its very difficult regulation on it so some parts are council and some parts are private so a lot of things that people came up with are not really feasible because it is difficult
because there was no agreement between land owners. That was quite difficult
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Is there anything else you could tell me about that relating to the reason or values they had that conflicted with getting involved?
I don’t know really I think we started not really from the co-design as we now know how it works so we really started with a team of designers who work with the people and local people there in finding really nice solu-tions
and then going on this process we discovered that some parts of the land were owned by somebody else so then plans that were made were not possible. It was a kind of a complex site for that.
I think that we learned through proud because it evolved a little bit .We started off differently but now we have a really nice space here design innovation hub we have here in the building and we have a toolbox with re-ally
nice specialised tools for people to work with. We do a co-design process with designers who are facilitating these sessions. Now we have this process, which is very good with co—design that we can facilitate the
process here.
Tell me about the project you have managed
Dutch design week there was a big project with agriculture with farmers and designers and government and really seeing how design and agriculture can merge to come up with new concepts for projects or services
or a new way of branding for example, milk or a lot of different topics like topics farmers are dealing with at the moment. Farmers get together at a table with the design and members of the community and they really
came up with new ides to help them move forward.
We hired external designers to facilitate the project as well
What was their job role whilst facilitating the project?
They stimulated the participants to be creative mostly to really help them use the tools.
Would you consider the project to have a more passive or active participation (where active stands for intense communication with designers)?
Yes I think very active yes.
How did you go about your co-design activates, what processes or tools did you use.
A bit the same as we used normally so we really have figures like money sign and piece of paper that people can put them on and so this was an agriculture theme so the symbols had to do with agriculture so we had
animals we had arms we had pictures we had mostly these kind of figures or symbols.
How did you plan the schedule for a project? What variables came into light?
Actually they give u a different group each day so it was very short sessions. It was really also for them to get acquainted for them to get comfortable with co-design and put their own kind of problem on the table. The
same designers came more often but the farmers were different people so we would teach the process every day. It was quite quick but I heard from the designers the tools were kind of speaking for themselves that it
was quite easy for people to really dive in to it very quickly and they stopped playing with the tools which were there to come up with creative ideas.
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Did anybody have any problems such as designers loosing their elitist mentality?
No it was okay here but we preselect them and brief them very well before hand.
How did you brief them? Were they familiar with the process before hand?
Yes because proud is a kind of a long project already we started in 2011 so we have a community of designers who use co-design sometimes and also Leon Cruickshank comes here to give Master classes to them as
well so they are familiar with the principles of how it works and what they should look after.
What type of contingency planning did you do for the project?
There was talks not with me but with the colleague between the province and how to tackle this problem or this kind of sessions but I think that was not really any barriers we have the space here we have the tools
developed specially for these sessions.
What kind of tools did you feel were most appropriate?
Mostly work best if they really spoke to people’s imagination so we had like an animal. People need to kind of use that symbolising their stock or a building symbolising what they would like in the future with trees then
they would like it to be more natural more ecological and energy saving so we really had the symbols that were really kind of familiar to people and not too abstract so that really helped.
How did you monitor and manage risks to the project?
There were reports written afterwards and the designers kept an eye on how it as going and at the end there was a presentation that was recorded on more paper.
Were there any limitation or problems that you had to face? Were there any communication issues?
Some farmers knew to design so they had to grasp the concept but that’s good in this kind of thing.
What was the most challenging aspect about your project?
I think that its difficult for people sometimes because they don’t know where its going and that they have to let go so you have to frame really well what you want to achieve in the end otherwise it goes everywhere. We
were going to start a new co-design challenge in September with school kids so I’m really wondering how that is going
Is that the Essen project?
They’re involved were doing one here but the designer from Essen; she’s coming over here to train the teachers and the designers. I think they have to frame it and there’s going to be an exhibition for Dutch design
week so we really have to aim for something that is exhibit-able. I think that’s typical of co-design that it can go in any direction and it’s difficult to plan anything beforehand.
What was the most successful aspect about your last project?
I think the new insights you get. I think it’s nice when normally like when the commissioner asks the designer to do something then they know a bit on the project but maybe they tackle the real problem that was there
and sometimes you really get surprising answers to challenges that you never thought of I think that it adds great value towards co-design.
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Have you worked on a co-design project that didn’t receive the outcome that was hoped for? What happened?
Not really but also because in the sessions we don’t really have any expectations in that manner so maybe the next challenge is really only outcomes. I think its good when it comes up from the people who need to use
it, it cannot be undesirable.
Is there anything you feel your particular company that should be valued in a co-design process and you feel is different from other departments in proud?
We do this big festival Dutch design week its really in co-design way but I think though proud we also had a workshop from Leon and used the tools from Lancaster to map out the needs and everything so its going well.
Is there anything you feel is important that should be added to the progression of co-design?
I think that for commissioners its still difficult to really grasp the added value because they think its easier to hire a company and have user-centre design which I can understand because its quicker and you can steer
the outcome a little bit but I think if they really see the value of if you have big challenges which are very complex you need a lot of perspectives. I think that goes between their ears but I think that it really helps.
3. Leon Cruickshank – 14th July 2014
I am a reader in design at Lancaster University. My involvement with proud s I help to write the BID and UK lead for the proud projects so I have been running I’m in charge of the projects the proud have done in the UK
What does being in charge of involve doing in the proud projects?
Well there are a number of work packages or actions that we have to do in the project I think there are six so I lead the master class work package which is about delivering new types of master classes across Europe
also I lead the UK Co-design projects which I think is work package or ‘action 5’ but any way every nation has a co-design project they run with their local community or local public space actually so I lead the develop-ment
of the UK local co-design project that was called beyond the castle.
What kind of things do you entail with the work packages?
In the BID they’re actually called actions but I think there are six work packages or actions. One of them around business models, one of them is around master classes, one is about co-design projects, there’s one
about tools and I can’t remember the rest.
What separates the co-design packages from other packages?
They’re all lead by different people. They all communicate and relate to each other but they’re all separate deliverables in the project.
What are the differences between the tools packages as well?
Well the tools packages is being developed by Jean Schneider but that’s been passed more to Eindhoven and capital d to work at so it’s still coming to focus but its kind of drawing together the processes that we devel-oped
throughout the proud projects to do co-design.
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How has this tools package developed over the years and what insights could you say have developed to make it more capable to facilitate a co-design environment?
I think the active bit of that package has only just… its drawing on the co-design projects that have happened so far so it couldn’t really get into high gear before the projects were starting to come into a conclusion so
that has become a very active bit of the project now where as before it was more about laying the ground work for the literature reviews and that kind of thing so its only just really becoming active and because some-one
else is leading it we don’t really know what they’re doing apart from talking to a few designers to design a toolbox or we’ve had conversations about designing a game or… there are lots of ideas but I’m not sure
what ideas they’re going to take forward yet.
Is there any particular reason that they should take other ideas before other ideas so do some ideas facilitate engagement better than others do you feel?
Yes for sure but also there’s also a wider question about what approaches are transferable between contacts so they’re might be something that’s very specific to a geographical area so for instance in beyond the
castle we employed a roman centurion to get people or help people think about the history underneath their feet in the area we were looking at. That would make no sense at all in Essen because they don’t have much
roman archaeology so there is a question about the effect of tools as they’re reused and there a question about the transferability of tools across the proud project but ultimately across the wider context so notion is that
we produce something that other people can use.
Would you say that it is more important that the people are immersed in the culture of their surroundings when involved with the project?
I don’t see how people cannot be immersed in their surroundings
You said that the centurion was used was to give people feedback on the history of the area where roman centurions used to be a part of the English history so would you say that were people more involved in their
history and more involved in their own culture it can benefit when conducting a co-design experiment to bring history from their own culture into the co-design project?
I think I agree in that every co-design project is different from co-design another project recognising and drawing on the specific nature is important but equally there will be some transferable things that can be used
to draw out those differences so when I think about co-design I think about on one hand very specific things that are designed particularly for that context like the roman centurion and there were about 7 different tools
or activities that joined together to form that day and they were all quite specific to the area, so you’ve got those on one hand and one the other hand you’ve got more generalizable tools and its worthwhile just think-ing
what a tool it. What a physical tool is. You go to a toolbox and you’ve got things that twist, things that grip, things that cut, maybe things that mark and that’s it so there are these fundamental things so a screwdriver
is something that turns something else. So the question is in for co-design what is those fundamental things and those fundamental things can be used so if you have a physical toolbox you can use the tools in that
tools box to make all sorts of amazing things and those things can be very much tailored to a specific environment or a specific context so specific tools for co-design, you can use those tools to make something really
specific for things like roman centurions or a train station or to a museum so there are two ways of thinking about tools. There’s the kind of tools that are more like mechanisms or processes that you use with people and
there are the fundamental tools that you use to create those mechanisms.
Well Proud was about developing new types of knowledge exchange actually through co-design so it was about building a collaboration. About understanding how other people approach co-design across Europe and
then about using and exchanging best practices or interesting practices between partners and applying that to Lancashire contexts so that’s Proud.
Beyond the castle was really about trying out those new things and really exploring how quite radical I think co-design approached could be employed. It feels like were more open and more co-design than the other
parts of the proud project in that we didn’t have designers coming up with ideas for outcomes. We employed designers to construct structures or processes that allowed non-designers to be creative and that is quite…
within the literature and within the project that’s on the radical end of co-design. Many of the other projects were more closer to user-centred design in that they employed designers and there were non-designers part of
the process but it tended to be that designers cam up with the clever ideas and they reported back to the stakeholders rather than getting the stakeholders to actually be creative.
What’s your role & responsibilities in co-design projects you’re involved with?
So I employed the designers and my role was (actually I’ve written about this in some of my papers) to act as an insulator between the politics of the local government and the designers themselves so we get on really
well with the city and county engagement officers but one or two of them literally said at one point ‘ were really happy for it to be an open process as long s you can tell us what the outcome is going to be and you cant
have both of those things so my role was to have quite vigorous discussions or arguments almost about keeping the project open and not knowing where the outcomes going to be but not communicating those tensions
to the designers so the designers are in this calm water where they can be creative and where they can do things and I’m having battles with the council and not telling them about it so they have this… they’re relaxed
and they’re having fun and they’re doing these things. Council quite anxious so my job was to smooth they’re feathers tell them it will be okay, keep them on side but act as a break with the designers and the outside
world.
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When communicating between the council and the designers do you feel there is any particular way to improve that communication between them so that they become less anxious or improves the facilitation and the
communication between the two parties?
The council weren’t the clients in this case so they were used to being in charge of the project and so this time they weren’t in charge so it wasn’t that there was a communication problem between them but the council
were playing a different role to what they normally play. They had to trust us more than usual they were participants rather than leaders. One thing we found out afterwards that we did but was very useful was the use
of high quality images was found to be very beneficial so there would be senior people in the council who couldn’t come to an event but they could get some nice images of people really having fun and really engaging
in an event and that calmed them. That made them think ‘actually they are doing interesting things with people look have you seen these pictures? That looks brilliant. Yeah. Good.’ So that positive feedback is really
important. The problem is to design a process properly we had to have 6 weeks where on the surface there was nothing visible because we were employing designers and they were designing processes so for six
weeks they really had to trust us that something interesting would come out and no one in the world - no one! - Knew what that outcome of that design would be in that six weeks because it hadn’t been designed so that
is where they took a real a leap of faith.
Being happy with ambiguity. It’s really about the facilitating. So its about doing what you need to do to facilitate the process as a whole and sometimes that facilitation its productive to be quite firm and sometimes its
about encouraging but a lot of the time it was about stepping back and giving up control so I would fight the council and say essentially this is our budget were spending it you cant tell us how to spend out money so that
was being quite authoritarian but were immediately giving that power to the designers saying ‘I trust you go for it draw on my expertise if and when you need to but I’m happy to be surprised and giving them the power
to express themselves and explore things and try things they didn’t work
And what potential risks do you see with that kind of facilitation towards the designers?
Well it could have been terrible but you’re a good facilitation doesn’t allow it to become terrible.
How?
They didn’t work in isolation, we had conversations and there was guidance so three weeks before the interactive co-design exhibition, no one knew what this could be. We had a meeting in Eindhoven and there were
five of us there and that was where I stopped being a hands off manager and started being a collaborator to make it come into reality because it was clear to me that it needed to be, so for that meeting I wasn’t ‘hands
off, do it yourself’, I was ‘this is what I think we should do, that’s interesting’. So I became a design for that meeting. And when the shape was more or less there I stepped back out and let the designers run with it so I
think one of the interesting things with designers working with co-design is that the movement between kind of neutral facilitator and active contributor and I think you need to be prepared to make that shift but equally
you need to be careful. You can only step in and stop being a facilitator so many times before you stop being able to be a facilitator and kind of an honest outsider so that’s a balance that you have to be aware of.
We had to cooperate with the people who were the stakeholders or contributors and participants. So they worked with lots of different groups but they were also individuals. So about 2000 people saw the project. About
700 people really worked actively on the project. We had about 20 volunteers that id say about 12 of those really put in maybe 20 hours of work that was volunteer work. Then we had designers and also a design
manager (MYSELF) so it was quite complicated the people we had to work with and different agendas. Residents groups, ecological groups, the designers themselves all brought agendas so it was quite complicated
so many different groups of stakeholders.
Facilitating the designers, how did you keep the designers interested in the project?
I dint find keeping their interest into the project a problem at all they were all very interested in the project. We put out a tent and we paid them. They were professional designers. I think you shouldn’t compare other
projects to this because they WERE the project and they were leading the project so they were each leading one of the events that were did and it was their projects so there wasn’t about consulting them it wasn’t
about them. They were leading each intervention and it was their baby and they drew on other people like myself and Gemma as they needed and they were I guess you would say empowered to lead and we sup-ported
they leadership and that empowerment was to help them to create structures to help other people to be creative within. So the issue with respect and consultation wasn’t really an issue people they were leading.
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