Design-led Approach to Co-production of Values for Collective Decision-Making

Abstract

Experience Labs are design-led spaces for co-creating preferable futures by bringing academic, business and civic stakeholders to work together with citizens using a participatory design approach. Differing value systems of stakeholders, however, can pose challenges when working collaboratively. Experience Labs support exchange and co-production of values among diverse stakeholders by making them articulate and visible through design, to resolve conflict and to support meaningful decision-making towards progressing ideas whilst integrating a multiplicity of perspectives. In this paper, we discuss the creation of an 'ethical imagination space' to explore preferable futures with diverse stakeholders; the core values of the Experience Labs which support the creation of this space; and the key qualities that support the exchange and co-production of shared values to enable collective decision-making. We propose that the 'next thinking' for design involves consideration of the ways in which we engage with values in cross-sectoral collaborations to enable collective decision-making.

Enabling genuine participation in co-design with young people with learning disabilities

“…Supporting mutual learning has also been noted as an important prerequisite for co-design (Slegers et al 2015). Emphasising mutual learning and legitimising lived experiences to complement 'expert' knowledge (Raman et al 2017), highlighting resilience over 'vulnerability' (Butler 2015), and promoting voice and empowerment Raman, S and French, T (Accepted Manuscript, 14 January 2021) The Version of Record of this manuscript has been published and is available in CODESIGN Published online: 26 January 2021. http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/15710882.2021.1877728 (Bradbury-Jones et al 2018), including psychological empowerment (Hussain 2010) contribute towards equalising power relations. This aligns with the view of co-design as an empowerment process enabling the development of different capacities fostering -'power over', 'power to', 'power with' and 'power within' (Zamenopoulos et al 2019).…”

Collaboratively engineering for justice in sixth grade STEM

“…Co-production disrupts the unidirectional power mediated service model. Built around efforts to re-imagine and enact new ethical and just social futures, our study illustrates how the class' co-production focused on continuous learning and transformation of the regularities of practice through exploration of the richness and diversity of experiences that participants brought to the learning (Raman, French, & Tulloch, 2017). Mrs. L supported her students in working toward justice in science class by fostering co-production of new Discourses threads, and how these Discourse threads solidified into new a Discourse-engineering for social justice in the community-that was pertinent to sixth grade science.…”

Ethics by Design. Exploring Experiences of Harmony and Dissonance in Ethical Practice.

“…Participants reflected that an asset based approach was seen to support an ethical imagination (Raman et al, 2017). Tools used within the Labs were described as 'generative' and deployed as a way to support 'provocation for imagination' and ensure a quality experience.…”

“…Taking an asset--based approach supports an ethical imagination through the collective "sharing of assets and experiences" (Raman, 2017) and fosters trust among participants and the researcher. The practice of negotiating these complex landscapes, with the inherent power relations are crucial in order to facilitate an objective space with a balance of disruptive and constructive; having the intuition to be able to read participants; and flexibility to respond in the moment.…”

“…In addressing these challenges in new and complex contexts, design researchers must facilitate the integration of disciplines, practices and perspectives in supporting a shared language to emerge across the stakeholders involved. As discussed by (Raman et al, 2017) design is able to "support the co--production of values among diverse stakeholders by making them articulate and visible, to resolve conflict and to support meaningful decision--making". The designer can therefore be seen to evolve from traditional role of 'the do--er', presenting a final solution to a client; towards 'the enabler', facilitating engagement among stakeholders, capturing multiple perspectives and working collaboratively towards the co-creation of an informed response to a complex challenge.…”