Co-designing With Communities
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“We have to stop educating designers as fixers,” says Innovation Lead KA McKercher.
When tasked with creating or re-designing systems and services, designers are positioned as experts that lead the charge in ways that will significantly shape other people’s lives – while people in these communities often have the insights to turn these systems and services around.
“If we’re not asking people for their help or valuing what they can contribute – or if we severely limit those opportunities – we’re missing out on all of that.”
In their session at This is Doing festival, KA McKercher shared how they are integrating humility into their design practice and how we can better design with, instead of for, communities.
Prioritise impact over intentions
Emerging designers can get caught in the trap of rushing to do the work, instead of starting with listening and reflection. KA shared that when they focused on transactional skills such as design research questions and useability testing instead of transformational design that works closely with communities, they ended up with a service model that didn’t meet the reality of what people needed. “It was more like a creative writing project rather than an implementable model.”
Consider the gaps between our intentions and the lasting impact the project will have on people and communities. Slow down and listen to the aspirations of the community rather than being led only by what the client has set out.
“We’re taught in design school that new equals good,” says KA but they recommend instead working in solidarity with the existing efforts of the community. “Resist more being better”.
Co-develop agendas and solutions
Reimagine ideas about who is the helper and the helped. While trying to save time and create an efficient workshop experience, KA designed activities that asked people to select from existing ideas rather than giving them the opportunity to produce their own ideas.
“It assumes disadvantage in a way that doesn’t match the way we think about our own lives,” says KA.
The community was seen as a problem to be solved and a learning exercise for the client’s staff. Workshop participants were positioned as beneficiaries and recipients of need instead of co-producers.
A better approach?
• Co-develop agendas not just with clients but with the community from the start
• Co-facilitate with a member of the community
• Be supported by diverse mentors throughout the design process
• Develop a regular reflective practice with peers
Create safe spaces for everyone to be heard
Power dynamics can quickly enter conversations and make people limit or reframe what they share, which could prevent a vital piece of the problem or potential solutions from being understood. For this reason, KA bans people from sharing job titles or educational backgrounds in workshops. Instead, workshops begin with the question, “who are you in your community?”. For example, if the workshop is about discussing affordable housing models, workshop participants could start by talking about their current home and family, or their home growing up.
Stripping back the usual questions we revert to when meeting people for the first time such as “what do you do?” opens up the space to people who may not have had the same opportunities, and makes conversations more accessible to everyone.