What is it? Participatory design, also known as co-design, is an approach to design that brings customers and/or stakeholders and/or subject experts together into the heart of the design process. Participatory design can be used during initial discovery and subsequent ideation phases, where the end-users of a product, service, or experience and/or stakeholders take an active role in designing solutions to meet their needs.. 

When is it best used? Participatory design may be helpful to generate or evolve ideas when people’s needs, feelings, and motivations are not well understood, or are extremely complex/nuanced. It also helps to ensure input to and buy-in from the key participants. Stimuli is often created or introduced to help attendees articulate what will or will not meet their needs, what their priorities are, and why. Stimuli/prototypes are usually iterated during the participatory design workshop or session as understanding evolves - towards a potential solution. 

This approach ensures the generative/discovery or development phase of work is not driven by the core/design team alone.

What does it entail? In this methodology, participants are invited during the generative/discovery, ideation or development phases of the design process. Participation can come in different shapes and levels of engagement from brainstorming to sketching potential ideas, role playing, journey mapping current experience, or other activities. With this approach, actual or prospective users and/or stakeholders are actively involved during the design process. Designers/researchers facilitate this process to better understand their perspectives and gather input firsthand so they can develop stronger and more relevant solutions (prototypes, concepts, statements, storyboards, MVP criteria, etc.) for testing in evaluative research.

Sessions are most successful when guardrails are introduced up front such as;

• Set expectations for the workshop

• State goals for the day (what’s in scope and what is out of scope)

• No bad ideas

• Yes, and…… (suspend judgement/build on the ideas of others)

• Safe place to play, express, explore

Interchangeable term: Co-design, Collaborative Design, Co-creation 

Use in a sentence: In our participatory design workshop we included end-users, stakeholders, and experts in our discovery to ensure 360 degree learning to inform our best direction. 

Related terms: Co-design, design thinking, generative research, MVP, prototypes, human centered design, creative collaboration workshops

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