Platform co-design workshops

Full description

Aim

The work stages have particular objectives and characteristics, which can be summarised in the following sequence (Becerra, 2019, pp. 90-91):

Empathise: it begins with a deep understanding of the situation being addressed, the needs of the various actors involved, and also the characteristics of their environment. The challenge is to “put yourself in the shoes” of the people towards whom development will be oriented in order to generate solutions that are consistent with their realities.

Define: analyse, synthesise and prioritise the information collected during the Empathy stage, to select what really adds value and allows building relevant perspectives. At the end of this stage, the specific challenge that will be sought to be addressed through innovative solutions is set out.

Ideate: generate the greatest possible diversity of solution options to meet the challenge. To do this, expansive thinking is activated and value judgments are suspended, so that the creative leap can be favoured.

Prototype: building artefacts – conceptual, functional or visual – that materialise ideas, so that possible solutions can be visualised, while at the same time revealing those elements that must be improved or refined before reaching the final result.

Test: putting prototypes to the test by users involved in the solution being developed, to validate the initial hypotheses. It also seeks to identify significant improvements, bugs to be resolved, or possible deficiencies.

Who to involve

• Community actors with situated experience in the socio-environmental problem for which citizen social science tools could be useful.
• It is advisable to involve an external facilitator trained in human-centered approaches during workshops.
• Scientific experts can also participate. Their role can be key to improve confidence in the relevance of data to be collected through the platform.

Further materials

Some skills of participants and organisers contribute to the success when implementing this tool:

• Pedagogical capacity to deliver information efficiently
• Interpersonal skills to interact with a diverse group of people
• Experience in using digital interactive tools and devices.

URL of the proyect’s website: https://farn.org.ar/coact-justicia-ambiental 

Step-by-Step

1. Define co-design goals
2. Contact participants
3. Send them informed consent forms
4. Ask them to arrive 15 minutes in advance of the starting time to arrange their positions in the space (onsite workshops) or to test devices and solve any connection or technical issues (virtual workshops).
5. Present the project and the ethics procedures
6. Start the planned dynamics structured to cover a divergence-convergence cycle and covering four moments: Introduction, Exploration, Discussion and Closing.
   1. Introduction: the aim is to build confidence among participants by presenting the project and status of the platform’s development, and also create a collaborative environment by opening the space for self-introduction and general interests and worries discussion.
   2. Exploration: this moment was intended for getting into the contents of each session. Facilitators started by showing the participants some screens and animations about the platform’s navigation, with the aim of familiarising them with the logics and characteristics of the platform. The key of this moment was to transform the participants into co-creators, enabling the channels for them to contribute in a contextualised manner, as in some cases they did not know the platform in advance. It was important to not influence opinions or positions to be able to truly understand the possible obstacles and expectations from the participants, according to the definition of the divergence dynamic. In that sense, the facilitators yield the leading role to the participants, so that they could openly present their first reactions, questions, demands or oppositions (Sanders, 2008).
   3. During the discussion, a set of open questions are asked to participants, based on the previous exploration, to assess the level of comprehension and possible problems, but also to open the discussion on the topics that the participants considered relevant. As the workshops were executed mostly in remote mode (facilitated through videoconference technology) these open questions worked as guides to orient the discussions and to produce useful conclusions. At this moment the dynamic’s divergence mode is activated, as the participants could pose their concerns and visions. The final moment was closing, that involved summarising the participants’ inputs and co-evaluation.
   4. The session is closed with a quick review of the main axis of discussion, and the comment on the co-design process next steps. In this way, the convergence process is started, in which the different ideas, comments or propositions are structured in such a way that they build meaning for the participants. At the end, participants are invited to evaluate the experience through a set of open questions and the invitation to suggest other stakeholders to be further invited. Facilitators play the role of catalysts that connect the different positions and suggestions for all participants in a manner that everybody leaves the session with a clear view of what has happened and what are the following steps.
7. Co-evaluation follow up: participants are provided with the opportunity to share their opinions and appreciations of the workshop activities through feedback forms (that in some cases can be completed by researchers through telephone conversations in case there are digital capabilities issues).

Acknowledgement

UNSAM team acknowledges the contribution of  Paulina Becerra (UNQ) in implementing and describing this tool

Image gallery

1

2

3

4

5