4.3 Implications of Co-creation Literature on Research Design
Additional literature review was conducted about co-creation in order to guide the planning of research cycle (RC) no. 3.
According to Sanders & Stappers (2008), co-creation referred to any act of collective creativity. Applications of co-creation ranged from material to spiritual creations, from physical to metaphysical objects. Co-creation as applied to the design process was referred to as “co-design”. Scariot etc. (2012) recognized that the extent to which designers involved users in the design process varied. Users could be involved as passive information sources to be tapped on through techniques such as interviews and focus groups; consultative sources to which designers proposed solutions and gathered feedback e.g. through usability tests; active participants who had the power over design decisions and guided through techniques like card sorting and storytelling. Co-design in this context would be tools which involved users — non-designers — as active participants alongside designers in the design process.
Steen etc. (2011) extolled the many benefits of co-creation. They classified the benefits according to the beneficiaries — for the service design project, for the service’s users, or for the organization — and in the areas of the creative process, the service outcome, project management, and long-term effects on market/society.
However there were risks involved in using co-creation during the design process too; having users as active participants in the design process did not always guarantee positive outcomes (Scariot etc. 2012).
To achieve high levels of collaboration, time had to be set aside for a team of designers and non-designers to socialize and develop congeniality (Scarlot etc. 2012). These increased commitments in labor, costs, and time needed to be managed by project managers to meet deadlines and budget constraints. Project managers from the partnering organisation who were new to the co-design approach might resent co-design for the additional demands placed upon them (Verleye, 2014). This might lead to user access issues (Scarlot etc. 2012), which hindered user participation in the design process.
Even if users were accessible, some might not be willing to participate in co-design as they might feel not up to the task (Verleye, 2014), or might demonstrate “destructive” reactions during co-design (Scariot etc. 2012). Thankfully, MRSN staff was used to participating in workshops and did not exhibit resentful behavior for participation, though the staff was feeling stretched for time due to work commitments. MRSN also helped to recruit asylum seekers for the workshop, so there were less difficulty with user access.
Steen etc. (2011) recommended that co-design participants must first identify the goals of the service design project to which they will contribute to, and align the intended benefits with their goal by selecting appropriate co-design methods. Some examples of such methods (Tassi, 2008) included using role-playing to build empathy, or rough prototyping to visualise and communicate ideas. After the co-design exercises, findings should also be documented and disseminated within the organization involved, to engage relevant people e.g. financial controllers to garner buy-in and adoption of co-design methods.
I was invited to MRSN’s Heritage Project Launch after the workshop and made use of the opportunity to engage the leadership of MRSN, to inform them about the draft report coming their way soon for feedback and dissemination after the workshop, that there would be continued engagement after the workshop ended, unlike their prior experience with other student researchers.
