Co-conception : fondements et méthodes

Billet publié par Stéphane Vincent dans la catégorie
Tags: Design , Innovation

Quels sont les fondements de la co-conception, et sur quels type d’outils s’appuie t-elle ? Pour les besoins d’un programme européen (ELLIOTT) consacré à l’internet des objets et mené avec la Fing, nous venons de produire cet article synthétique en anglais, qui dresse brièvement les fondements de cette pratique telle qu’elle est apparue dans le design, et cite en exemple une quinzaine de techniques, assorties de leurs avantages ("pro") et de leurs éventuels inconvénients ("cons"). Pour le faire, nous nous sommes notamment inspirés du formidable site "servicedesigntools.org".

Changing the roles

In the classical user-centered design, the user is a passive object of study, the researcher brings knowledge from theory and enrich this knowledge by the observation of the user, the designer uses this knowledge and stimulates it through technology and creative thinking, and if there is a client at the origin of the whole process, he receives the results with no need to report afterthought. With co-design, all these roles are significantly changed :

• The user turns into an “expert of his/her experience” (Sleeswijk Visser et al, 2005) : he plays a crucial role in knowledge development, idea generation and concept development. In successful cases, users have the ability to take part to the design process and to become co-designers -but it depends on level of expertise, passion, and creativity of the user : all people are creative but not all people become designers -or not at any moment of their lives. Anyway, all users needs to be given appropriate tools for expressing themselves.
• The researcher supports the user by providing tools for ideation and expression in generating insights ; in this new role, the researcher is more a facilitator than the translator that he used to be. This facilitation role will have to be adapted in accordance with the different levels of creativity of the users (e.g., Postma & Stappers, 2006) ; they will have to 1. lead people who are on the “doing” level of creativity, 2. guide those who are at the “adapting” level, 3. provide scaffolds that support and serve peoples’ need for creative expression at the “making” level, and 4. offer a clean slate for those at the “creating” level
• The professional designer helps the researcher to invent tools for ideation, and gives form to the ideas ; With users able to take part in the co-design process, designers will have a highly pedagogic role in developping skills that become essential to address change in the future. They will bring their own knowledge and specific expertise. They will more and more invent tools and methods to enable non-designers to express themselves creatively.
• When a client (company, operator) is involved in the co-creation process, he accepts to open, at least partly, the “black box” and to let it go, and give some transparency on the following process. This level of transparency is of course a tricky question since the core value of many companies is questionned by the co-creation process.

Pros. Freshness and clearness : co-design is good at reinterrogating problems and at changing the initial questions ; Changing minds : a powerful method to produce ecosystemic, positive and collective visions

Cons. Implementation : designers alone are not allways good at implementing and creating impact. Weariness : using only and too much participation would become exhausting and tedious, for few results in the end

The co-creation toolkit

The co-design process combines methods and tools that come from different fields : social science, business, design and technology. Most of the definitions comes from services design tools, Roberta Tassi, 2009 (nc-by-nd cc licence)

Role Play

Some actors, the sample users or the designers themselves perform a hypotetical service experience. The implied condition is thinking that the service really exists and then building a potential journey through some of its functionalities.A possible evolution of this tool consists in the performance of the same scene several times, changing the character profiles on each scene in order to understand how different users would act in the same situation.

Pros. Very useful for digital products and non-tangible device when you got to « simulate » or to test the experience of a future service ;

Cons. Some attendees don’t like to perform… you generally have to organize a short trainer before starting the role play

Storytelling

The storytelling supports the exploration of the service idea. Through the use of simple words, the teller will illustrate the solution as it is a story.This allows the communication of the idea inside a group but also the preparation of the first sketches for the storyboard. The storytelling leave some blanks to be fill in by the suggestions of other stakeholders and users.

Pros. Very powerful, very precise and requires no means, just imagination.

Cons. Misanderstanding : if not clearly mentionned, attendees might wondering wether the devide/product already exists or not, which might be very baffling

Group sketching

The group sketching is a quick, fast and economic tool for developing and explaining ideas simultaneously.It is used during the co-design sessions in order to share the insights inside the team : this tool offers a common ground for the discussion even when the participants have different cultural and social backgrounds. It is based on basic and simple drawings in order to encourage the participation of everybody.

Pros. Good for buillding a team with heterogenous attendees Cons. Requires preparation and has some risks if not tested before.

Issue cards

The issue cards are a physical instrument used as a peg to induce and feed interactive dynamics inside a team. Each card could contain an insight, a picture, a drawing or a description ; everything is able to suggest new interpretations of the problem and to induce the assumption of a different point of view. The result is the identification of new criticalities and opportunities in the context of reference. The heterogeneity and simplicity of the contents are required to guarantee the success of this tool.

Pros. Useful when there is a need to introduce tangible vision in order to stimulate non-tangible ideas. Issue cardsoften represent the first step to a game or to an enabling toolkit (printed or software) Cons. Issue cards are often more an incentive to stimulate the beginning of a creative session, than a solid framework for a continuous conversation

Character profiles

The character profiles is a tool for the creation of a shared knowledge about the service users inside the team.In order to build these character profiles it’s required the identification of some significant fictitious characters and then the collecting of an image and a textual description for each one of them. The character profiles offer a clear and visible picture of the different kinds of users that are the centre of the design activities.

Pros. With user journeys, profiles are essential to build a common and qualitative vision of the users

Cons. Privacy : it’s more and more difficult to use real pictures of people and to suggest their identity – that’s why we generally use fictitious characters

Rough prototyping

The rough prototyping is a quick method to build prototypes using all the objects and materials available in that specific moment and location.These elements are used to simulate the service components in order to better explain an idea in front of the other members of the team. It is a tool supporting the visualization of ideas and a way to be sure that all the members of the team are talking about the same thing. It also contributes to make the process of design more interactive and concrete.

Pros. One of the most efficiant tools in design, with the strongest added-value ; Cons. Participants often feel a sort of « sideration » after the prototype is built, and it’s sometime difficult to reach to implementation step.

Experience prototyping

The experience prototype is a simulation of the service experience that foresees some of its performances through the use of the specific physical touchpoints involved.The experience prototype allows designers to show and test the solution through an active participation of the users.

Pros. A very powerful added-value in the design of services and other non-tangible devices

Storyboard

The storyboard is a tool derived from the cinematographic tradition ; it is the representation of use cases through a series of drawings or pictures, put together in a narrative sequence.The service storyboard shows the manifestation of every touchpoints and the relationships between them and the user in the creation of the experience.

Pros. Everybody can read and understand cartoons… Cons. The risk to draw caricatures of the reality

Personas

The personas are archetypes built after a preceding exhaustive observation of the potential users.Each persona is based on a fictional character whose profile gathers up the features of an existing social group. In this way the personas assume the attributes of the groups they represent : from their social and demographic characteristics, to their own needs, desires, habits and cultural backgrounds.

Pros/Cons. Same as character profiles

User Journey

The customer journey map is an oriented graph that describes the journey of a user by representing the different touchpoints that characterize his interaction with the service.In this kind of visualization, the interaction is described step by step as in the classical blueprint, but there is a stronger emphasis on some aspects as the flux of information and the physical devices involved. At the same time there is a higher level of synthesis than in the blueprint : the representation is simplified trough the loss of the redundant information and of the deepest details.

Pros. A useful tool for the detection of drivers and barriers in the quotidian life of users

Cons. Simplification might generates carticatures if no caution

Service poster

The service Poster is a simulation of a future promotional advertising of the service.Through the elaboration of the Poster, the designers imagine how the new offering could be launched on the market and perceived by the consumers. The Poster gives the opportunity to understand the link between the service idea and the existing reality and, at the same time, it could be an effective way of visualizing the solution.

Pros. Like product or experience prototyping, service poster is a good way to start from the targeted result and go back to the process

Interaction table

The interaction table is a diagram supporting the strategic discussion.The starting point for its construction is the traditional storyboard describing the interaction step by step (the blueprint) ; in this case the storyboard should be expanded with descriptions and images till it becomes a total illustration of the service, a representation where all the resources, the competences and the activities are both shown visually and described verbally.

Pros. Essentiel to make sure that the complexity is accessible to the users involved in the conversation

Moodboard

A mood board is a visual composition of pictures and materials that propose an atmosphere by giving the generic perception of it. The mood board helps in the elicitation of some values the service has that are difficult to be described by words. The use of a visual representation fixes univocally the perception of the service inside the team.

Pros. Another essential tool for the dialog with the users involved in the conversation

Cons. Quite similar to mindmapping, requires a good balance between clarity and complexity to be useful

Blueprint

The blueprint is an operational tool that describes the nature and the characteristics of the service interaction in enough detail to verify, implement and maintain it.It is based on a graphical technique that displays the process functions above and below the line of visibility to the customer : all the touchpoints and the back-stage processes are documented and aligned to the user experience.

Pros. The blueprint is the visualization of the action plan, an important part of the design process since it summerizes all the previous work

Actor map

The ecology map is a graph representing the system of actors with their mutual relations. It provides a systemic view of the service and of its context.The graph is built through the observation of the service from a specific point of view that becomes the centre of the whole representation ; for example if the selected subject is the user, the graph will show all the actors starting from their relations with him.

Pros. Actor map gives a vision of the real interactions and powers that exist under official hierarchies (in an organization, a district, a school, etc). Cons. Actor map is impossible to read and to operate in big ecosystems and organizations.

Immersive experience

Immersion consists in living within a population for a while -spending significant time with them, at their home and work places. In this method inspired by anthropology, designers or searchers merge into the quotidian life of people. The empathy thus created generates a better understanding of the real life of people, and produce a favorable ground for co-creation.

Pros. Very stimulating in sector traditionnaly used to « top-down » approaches. Cons. Requires a solid organization to be implemented. Designers are not used to work grassroot