Co-design in HCI

We believe that co-design is an effective way to design products that really meet the needs of end users. By giving end-users a more active role in the product development process the design decisions are not based on interpretation of user needs analysis but directly on the opinion of the users. For the NordiCHI conference we focus on how to apply and implement co-design in the daily practice of developers, researchers, designers and management. Co-creation is participatory design in which all the relevant stakeholders are direct participants in the development of new products throughout the entire process. This means that participatory design can have a role at every part of the design process, from pre-design all the way through to the evaluation of the final product. We propose that co-design is not only about interacting and cooperating constructively with end-users, but also with people with technical backgrounds and with other stakeholders. The power of co-design is that it can prevent many of the communication problems that occur in traditional development teams when the work is organised sequentially or in parallel, but not simultaneously. There can be difficulties to overcome during a co-design project. It can be a challenge to enable people with different backgrounds to work together constructively and to keep all team members equally motivated. We also experience that co-design can be time consuming because it requires some time to prepare end-users and other stakeholders to participate at an equal level within the team.

Goals and results

During the workshop we will address questions relating to the efficiency and effectiveness of co-design as a method to develop user centered products. These questions will be answered based on real practices and on the relation between theory (or prescription) and practice (or description). We aim to answer questions like: What are the benefits of the co-design approach compared to other human centered methods? What is the potential value of co-design for commercial product development, where efficiency plays an important role? When and how is it effective or efficient to apply co-design as a development method? Can co-design be applied during the entire development process, or are there phases where it is more efficient to develop without end-user involvement?
Goals of the workshop are to make explicit, share and discuss experiences from practices, critically reflect on these practices and to jointly articulate the strengths and weaknesses. The outcome of the workshop will be a view on how co-design can (or should) be applied in a non-research environment.