In times of rapid social, economic, environmental and technological change designers can play a valuable role by applying their creativity to catalyse innovative solutions to address complex problems. As they do so, it becomes apparent they need to ask fundamental questions about what they make, how they make it, and who for. The mindsets and postures of designers often go unnoticed and unacknowledged, but they profoundly influence what is identified as a problem and how it is framed and addressed. This paper draws upon a research project titled 'CO/DEsign', which explores the application of agile co-design methods in an endeavour to understand and identify the most appropriate approach for rigorous analysis. The 'CO/DEsign' project argues that, while it is important to draw upon other disciplines and borrow methods such as thematic analysis, further methods should be developed that better represent and support designers and their approaches.

Design is being performed on an ever-increasing spectrum of complex practices. As a result there is demand on the articulation of design's application across disciplinary boundaries. This paper explores this context through acknowledging the retained role of design artefacts in engaging complex, collaborative contexts and a developing understanding of boundary objects. This paper expands on notions of design artefacts as boundary objects by offering reflections on existing examples from ongoing design research in the context of health and care innovation. Through the process of framing a design problem, live models are developed as dialogical tools with collaborators to validate and inform design solutions. Such models are argued to act as boundary objects that are not static, but living artefacts open to ongoing scrutiny within the design context, offering an understanding of the value and practice of design artefacts in complex, collaborative contexts.

Person centred design has generated significant attention in the business press and has been heralded as a novel problem-solving methodology well suited to the often-cited challenges and complex problems which organisations face, but offers up questions of the role that the designer should take on in co-designing with users. Through a person-centred approach to innovation we argue that designers can play a significant role in complex problem solving. This paper proposes that it is in the co-development between user-input and ideas, and the designers' sensibility, idea-generation, visualisation and future-casting that innovative solutions are arrived at. This paper draws upon the 'Experience Labs' method, an approach derived from the Institute of Design Innovation at the Glasgow School of Art. The authors present preliminary findings from a design-led approach to creative problem solving within the context of health and social care, referencing a project delivered in partnership with a blood donation service.

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