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Design and co-creation

Last updated on September 21, 2022

Design services with your users to make sure what is being created meets their needs.

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Generating ideas

Affinity grouping

Affinity grouping is a clustering exercise that groups similar ideas and information gathered during user research. Affinity grouping helps the team synthesize research data into common themes. The themes the team identifies can be analyzed and inform the activities that will be done in the Opportunity phase.

 

Affinity grouping steps

  1. Individually write down research findings on sticky notes. Only write one finding per sticky note
     
  2. Mark the sticky note with an indicator of where the research came from
     
  3. Tell the group about each research finding and then post the sticky note on the wall
     
  4. After all the sticky notes are posted, as a group cluster similar research findings together
     
  5. Take pictures of each cluster to document the themes

Card sorting

Card sorting is a method to help design the navigation or information architecture of your website. To understand what content goes where, card sorting has participants group cards together based on their own knowledge. After multiple sorting activities, your team will see how users group content together and what labels they give to those groups. This information can inform how you structure your navigation or information architecture.

 

Card sorting steps

  1. Write or print the main content of your website’s pages on separate cards
     
  2. Spread the cards out on a table in a random order
     
  3. Ask participants to group similar content together and give it a label
     
  4. If you are doing a closed card sort (you already have the labels), ask participants to group the content under these labels
     
  5. Repeat this exercise with multiple users to see commonalities and differences between users

Design the box

Design the Box is an exercise where participants actually create a product box to represent the vision for a service. Participants are asked to imagine that their service is sold in a box on a retail shelf. This can help clarify the vision by creating that box and filling out common product packaging information.

Design the Box creates a structured set of constraints that helps a group focus on the essential elements of a project or strategy. The box also provides a concrete, tangible representation of what a project or strategy is about.

 

Design the box steps

  1. Have participants work in small groups using the supplied Design the Box template (PDF, 5.9KB) on 11x17 paper
    • Front
      1. ​​Give it a name
      2. Give it a tagline: what is the service about in one sentence?
      3. What are the top three benefits someone gets from using this service?
    • Back
      1. ​​What are other benefits, features or functions?
      2. What would be the testimonial or quote from a delighted future user?
      3. Can you show a sketch, photo or screenshot of the service in action?
    • Sides
      1. What are the requirements to access the service?
      2. Think about requirements for users, such as specific qualifications.
      3. Think about requirements for your own team, like office hours or mobile network connections
         
  2. Share the boxes with the whole group. Consider iterating and consolidating so that there is agreement on one final box
     
  3. Optional: Create a high-fidelity version of the box using Photoshop, or use an actual physical box

Concept prototyping

Scenarios

Scenarios describe the stories and context behind why a specific user or group uses your service.  Scenarios identify the goals and questions a user has with your service, and sometimes define the possibilities of how the user will achieve those goals with your service. Scenarios are useful for thinking through how to design an interface or for setting up a set of tasks for usability testing.

 

Scenarios steps

  1. Choose a user for your scenario based on the personas that have been developed
     
  2. Identify why the persona needs to use your service. What questions might they have?
     
  3. Identify the goals your persona has for using your service. How can they achieve their goals?
     
  4. Define and identify the various possibilities and any potential barriers
     
  5. Record how the persona will move through the service to accomplish their goals

Sketching

Sketching is a quick, fast and economic tool for developing and explaining ideas visually. It is used during a co-design session as a way to share the insights from the team. Sketching creates common ground for the discussion when the participants have different backgrounds to the subject matter. Advanced drawings skills aren’t necessary, sketching is based on basic and simple drawings in order to encourage the participation of everybody.

Storytelling and storyboards

Storytelling

Storytelling supports the exploration of a service idea by explaining the journey, illustrating the solution as it unfolds. This helps communicate the idea to the team through the power of story, and prepares the team with the first sketches for the storyboard.

Storyboards

Storyboarding is an effective and inexpensive way to capture, relate, and explore experiences in the design process, illustrating touchpoints and relationships for the user throughout a service. These stories take on life through the incorporation of personas to explain how the service addresses real user needs. 

Making decisions 

Feature-value matrix

A feature-value matrix is a tool to compare the value of opportunities for different stakeholders. This value can then be compared with effort, complexity and risk of action (or inaction). This tool helps shift the team from generating ideas to narrowing them down to focused opportunities.

 

Feature-value matrix steps

  1. Write out the opportunity titles on sticky notes
     
  2. Place the opportunities on a large 2x2 matrix of high or low value for the citizen/stakeholder and high or low value for government
     
  3. Identify the opportunities that the group sees as a high value for both
     
  4. Take the highest value opportunities and create another 2x2 matrix for high or low impact and high or low effort to implement
     
  5. Identify the opportunities that are high impact and low effort
    • ​​Are there other ideas that may be worth high effort because they will have high impact?
       
  6. Discuss the risks of both acting and not acting on a specific opportunities
     
  7. Determine which opportunities you want to move forward into Prototyping and Testing