Episode 6 - Participation in Design Processes

Peter talks to Jocelyn Bailey, an expert in using participative processes in the design of complex social systems. Jocelyn has worked with members of the UK Parliament to raise awareness of design approaches to solving complex problems, she has worked with USCreates, and recently completed a PhD thesis on emerging practices of design in the UK government. In the interview they talk about the different ways of including people in the design process and what can sometimes go wrong. They also discuss problems with finding the right people to codesign with, and appropriately representing specific population groups. Following the interview Peter and Mieke discuss the difference between participation and codesign, why sometimes not including designers in a codesign process can work better, and why designing your own method is best.

During the interview Jocelyn mentions several key references Participation: The new tyranny, by Bill Cooke and Uma Khotari, was published in 2001. Thomas Markussen is a teacher and researcher at the University of Southern Denmark looking at issues of participation in design processes he recently co-authored a paper looking at the democracy of healthcare. Josina Vink and Katarina Wetter-Edman have published work in the area of codesign, power, and participation. One of their recent papers was Staging aesthetic disruption through design methods for service innovation. A good resource that Jocelyn uses for codesign inspiration is Liberating Structures: “microstructures that enhance relational coordination and trust … quickly fostering lively participation in groups of any size”.

In the discussion after the interview Mieke talks about a codesign project called The Future of Fish, a non-profit ‘change incubator’. There are some good videos explaining the codesign involved in the project. Mieke also talks about how to tackle complex systems through codesign in her blog.

Peter talks about the participative work of Hilary Cottam, the controversial UK Designer of the Year 2005. Hilary worked with the UK Design Council to produce the ‘Double Diamond’ model of design, and has worked on many difficult social design challenges.