Empowering people to take part in co-design
Community management for sensitive research topics
When Beyond Blue approached Paper Giant to conduct a co-design project — entirely online — to collaboratively develop ways they could respond to the mental health and wellbeing challenges presented by Covid-19, we jumped at the chance. For us, this was a new way of conducting co-design, full of exciting possibilities.
Project overview: Improving responses to mental health challenges
Thirty people from across the country joined us in the community we established. We were shifting from in-person, high-intensity collaboration to online, asynchronous collaboration: from discrete, facilitated engagements to an always-on platform where community members could interact amongst themselves independently of the design team.
Through the incredible work and shared experiences on this project, we have learned a lot about the power of good community management, especially in sensitive project contexts.
The role of a community manager and project manager
The community manager ensures all participants feel heard, engaged and supported. This person ties the community together, builds bridges between the design team and the community members, is available for technical support and issue resolution, and shares regular updates with the community.
Ultimately their role is to empower people to participate in the co-design process to their full potential. They are the face of the research team and a central point for the community.
A community manager is different from a project manager. The project manager works closely alongside the community manager, making sure everyone was well informed and in the right place at the right time. This was no small feat, given our community was spread out across four time zones.
To share some of what we’ve learned, I interviewed the community manager and project manager for the Beyond Blue project. The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity, and participants’ names have been changed.
Ryley Lawson: Why don’t we start things off by talking about your roles on the project?
Leah Edmond: Of course. I was the community manager — the first point of contact for everyone, checking in regularly with the community. I was there to make sure people were kept in the loop throughout the course of the project, especially during the onboarding and offboarding processes. I also recorded weekly update videos to upload to our online community platform, and spent a lot of time moderating the discussions.
Beth Warhurst: And I was the project manager. I was the support for the wider project team, and I was responsible for a lot of behind-the-scenes communications with the community about general logistics and scheduling of the workshops and events we ran.
On the structure of the co-design process
Ryley: Can you tell us a little bit about the co-design process?
Leah: We brought everyone together on a platform, which allowed the project team to involve people in carefully designed activities, conduct diary studies and kick off open forums for everyone to participate in on their own time. People were able to provide feedback on the process as we went, too. Every week, we would provide updates, move on to a new activity and start new conversations. I was quite involved in moderating those discussion forums and making sure everyone felt heard, and that any concerns they had were addressed.
Ryley: The participants involved in this project were bringing with them stories and experiences — like depression, anxiety and suicide — that required a particularly attentive kind of care and support. What help did you have in managing the needs of those participants?
Beth: We had a mental health clinician from Beyond Blue — Chris Schildt— involved from a clinical point of view. People were able to go straight to him, and he set up regular check-ins with lots of participants. Between Chris, ourselves, and the broader project team, we had multiple tiers of support and interaction. I think that worked really well for the project.
Leah: It was great to have Chris around, he really knows his stuff. It was so good to be able to check in with him if you were talking to a participant and you could tell they were having a bit of a hard time.
Ryley: Definitely! So it sounds like, Leah, you had more of a community and wellbeing focus, and Beth, your focus was on the team, clients and logistics.
On having a separate community manager and project manager, instead of one person in both roles
Beth: Having someone like the community manager sitting slightly outside the project team meant that participants could be more honest and open about their opinions and their concerns. If there was just a project manager for them to speak to, you might not have had that separation of the practical and the emotional. Given the size of our group, it was really important to have that dedicated community manager role — someone who was open and available for people to talk to about anything that came up.
Ryley: What kinds of things did people come to you both to talk about?
Leah: One thing I noticed was people coming to me with what felt like insecurities around what was expected of them. When the project team were all working together and doing interviews, there were definitely people in the community feeling like they didn’t want to let the project team down. The way we did the work was a new experience for a lot of people, so being able to express those insecurities about how they were contributing, and for me to be able to reassure them, was really helpful.
Beth: Absolutely! A lot of market research that people take part in — which can be a little “Do you like this kind of laundry detergent?” — is so different from sharing stories of your own crisis-based experiences. There’s a level of vulnerability expected in the kind of project we did, so we needed to be there if they had any concerns.
We were also asking people to use an online platform that was new to them — it was good that people were able to come to us with questions about that too. I think having a sidekick through the project made that a lot easier.
Ryley: I love that, the ‘project sidekick’!
Leah: I remember, one participant, Susan, has a lot of social anxiety. She said she didn’t really like public speaking or talking in groups. She felt like she wouldn’t be able to contribute to the workshop she’d signed up for. She got in touch with me to say she was nervous about being able to contribute enough. We had a really good chat about it. We talked about how there wasn’t any expectation on her; simply being there and being honest and sharing her voice of experience would be a huge contribution.
In the end she actually went to the workshop and really enjoyed it — she just needed to settle her nerves. But if we hadn’t talked, she might have cancelled and we never would have known why.
Ryley: That’s tricky — there were definitely situations where it was difficult to communicate what we needed, especially how the messier ’co-design’ aspects of the project might have been different to traditional market research. We were responding to things as they came up and designing the project to fit, which made some of the planning and communication quite challenging. I’m sure if you both hadn’t been around for people to talk to, the drop-off rate could have been quite high.
Beth: Even when I was doing that “which laundry detergent do you prefer” style of market research back in the day, there was always an attrition rate to be considered — people might just not turn up to the session. When you’re spending six weeks online with people, there’s a lot more room for engagement to drop. If we were all in a room together doing a workshop, it would be really easy to notice if someone was having issues. You could sit off to one side with them and explain it without a risk of them dropping off — that’s a lot harder online.
Leah: I remember there was that one moment in the project where the instructions that we’d given out for that week definitely weren’t as clear as they could have been. That was a busy week for me, I got a lot of phone calls, but it was also the week where one of my favourite relationships within the project really formed.
On building relationships
Ryley: Can you tell me about that relationship, and why relationships like that were so important to how the community worked together?
Leah: I remember Margaret was the last to be onboarded. She started a bit behind everyone, and then ended up getting quite frustrated when we started having tech issues and we couldn’t get the info pack out to her. At that time, we had a couple of phone calls which were quite blunt and short, I felt like there was real tension between us in the beginning. But by the end, I ended up having one of the longest offboarding chats with her. It was really friendly, she’d had a really great experience, and she’d actually really enjoyed it all.
Ryley: So what changed?
Leah: I was able to take my time with the phone calls we had, trying to clarify some of those activities; I think that really helped. We had a couple of good chats where we got to move away from talking about the project — away from the nitty-gritty, the paperwork, that kind of thing — to talking about her and her life. It was a nice opportunity to remind each other that we were just people. It felt really good when we could have a bit of a chinwag.
Ryley: From what I was seeing, the overall feeling within the community changed over the six weeks as well.
Beth: In the beginning, when people were first logging on to the platform, they were only sharing basic information about themselves, like the town where they lived, and whether they have a pet or a hobby.
Then towards the middle and end of the project, things really shifted gears. There were participants directing workshops themselves, they were openly querying the designers on things they didn’t agree with and questioning the resources they were being given. And they were also really opening up to Chris — the clinical nurse — and seeing him as an ally and a support.
Leah: I think you could sense a real investment in the project, there was a real pride that developed in the work. At the end of the project, it actually felt like the life of what we had made together was ongoing. I remember talking to participants who told me about how participating in this project had really changed the way they talk about themselves and their experiences, and how they will continue to communicate about mental health outside of this project as well. I don’t know if that was something the participants, or anyone, had anticipated in the beginning. There was a lot of personal work that happened there. Even just opening up and sharing those stories and talking to someone like Chris, a mental health professional, I think that was a new experience for a lot of people.
On the responsibility of creating safe spaces for people to be vulnerable
Ryley: But there’s also a great deal of responsibility on us, right? We were creating spaces for people to open up and share their experiences, we need to be careful about how we draw that engagement to a close.
Beth: We could go back to that laundry detergent analogy. When you’re doing standard market research and it’s focused on something like “Do you enjoy using this product”, it’s a very different situation — you can ask for that opinion and then move onto something else quite quickly without any risks. But there was so much emotional vulnerability in a project on mental health, so you have to think about the emotional hangover for the participants, and even for the designers and the wider team.
If you don’t wind a project like this down the right way, it can be really negative for everyone involved, and cause lots of pain for the participant. For designers who genuinely care, it’s hard to distance yourself sometimes.
Ryley: I feel you there. You have to draw a line somewhere. How did you draw that line and set those boundaries during this project?
Leah: It can be really hard to switch off. Those stories stay with you — you might be working certain hours in the day, but those thoughts stay with you after hours.
Beth: How much of yourself do you give to a scenario while also taking care of yourself? I think it’s a balance that we all struggle with, as we try to flex and change and recalibrate. Sometimes it’s about being honest when it’s too much, when you just need some time out. There’s no shame in that, it doesn’t mean that you care less or you aren’t putting in the effort. It just means that for your own sake, you just need a bit more headspace.
Leah: It can be really helpful to think about some scenarios in advance too, to anticipate the kinds of things that might come up. For example, what happens in those out-of-office hours? For an online platform, what does moderation on the weekend look like and whose responsibility is it?
Having a plan in place for if there is any need for additional support or escalation is important. If a participant reaches out on the weekend with concerns for their wellbeing, do we know the best steps to take to give them the appropriate support? While it’s important to be responsive when dealing with such heavy topics, it’s also really important to know when to acknowledge something is outside of your capacity to deal with it.
I think one of the most important things I learned was about equipping the community with additional resources and support structures before they need to ask for them. Doing that can be empowering for the participants, but it also prepares you as a community manager to handle anything that comes your way, and in such a sensitive project context, that was really, really necessary.
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