Co-design In The Time Of Covid19: Tools And Approaches
By Lee Ryan and Jacob Otter
Post 1 Preparing for ethical research co-design practice in a COVID19 context
Post 2 Co-design in the time of COVID19: Power, Privacy and Sovereignty
This, the last of our three part ethics blog series on working during COVID 19, focuses on the tools and approaches that people involved in codesign and research have been both trying and sharing. We want to focus on:
What is changing in our use of practices and tools
What does digital inclusion mean for us
How do we take a systems future view that is more equitable
We also acknowledge that at the start of June there are new challenges and new questions emerging. These further highlight the need to shape systems which can evolve, learn & respond equitably to complex challenges we face now & in the future.
WHAT CHANGES IN OUR PRACTICE AFTER BEING REMOTE FOR TWO MONTHS?
Because of the covid-19 lockdown, remote research and codesign became the new normal out of necessity for many practitioners. Now, as we emerge from lockdown, many of the stresses that emerged from the health threats of covid-19 are reshaping into heightened economic uncertainty for many people. How we frame, invite, and practice research and codesign continues to matter.
There have been unexpected benefits for people from lockdown, including the acceleration of remote working, and delivering services more directly. If we consider research,
Paper Giant in Australia have reminded us that “instead of focusing on all the ways remote research fails to replicate the face-to-face experience, think about the new possibilities it opens up.” For them, these benefits include the broader range of participants, the flexibility that participants gain to consider questions or issues on a platform where they choose when and for how long they participate, and possibly richer storytelling tools through photos, objects beyond the face to face encounter.
Similarly, Corey Chao at Reboot has written a couple of useful blog posts on the benefits of remote engagement. His first post outlines opportunities provided by virtual codesign and research:
You aren’t pressured to do everything in a single, compressed meeting.
Participants can take time to process and reflect over multiple days, compare notes with colleagues, and answer open questions with more space in-between meetings.
Ideation can transition into concrete action.
You can reinvest budget for travel and logistics into testing or piloting some of the resulting, co-designed proposals.
And to reinforce what many have already learnt, Chao’s second post gives some tips to realise these opportunities.
CHOOSING TECH PLATFORMS AND THE QUESTION OF DIGITAL INCLUSION
One of the big issues many of us have been grappling with is a technical one: which platform do we use for remote engagement? Informing this question are concerns about digital inclusion, as we all want to make sure those we work with can use the platform easily. But there are many who are left out, again, who are doubly isolated by being excluded from this digital world as well as social face-to-face contact. There is ample evidence that a lack of digital access has a social cost*, such that the NZ government now has a blueprint to address it and InternetNZ have laid out a five point plan.
Some questions that stick out for us include:
How might digital platforms generate new forms of social exclusions or enhance previous ones? What will this mean for organisations and service providers?
How might we enable people with a range of digital skills to participate in design? Is it that we provide devices or access to data? Might we need to consider enablers such as paying family/friends to babysit?
In addressing these issues we would like to share some useful resources.
Firstly, there are a number of digital, online tools available for remote research and design This spreadsheet here has a list of different remote tools that user researchers in the UK government have suggested for each different stage of research. Similarly, this presentation in Google Slides by FutureGov on Making Design Research work considers how research and design activities can be delivered and used remotely.
Secondly, of these options, messaging apps are being identified as important platforms, especially for engaging young people. The opportunities for connection offered by messaging apps is explained here by Stripe Partners and some general principles and guidance for going online has been put together by the Social Switch Project. They have three posters outlining how to use video calling and remote engagement when dealing with young people. One app getting a lot of attention in this area is Whatsapp, largely because it has a lot of users. Barnardos UK have piloted using Whatsapp for engaging at-risk youth and identified a number of benefits and opportunities to using the platforms. A presentation on their pilot is here while the report is here.
One big issue with online platforms is that the data generated may be made available to parties outside of the ones consenting to work together. For example, Zoom recently announced that data from their free services would be made available to law enforcement should it be requested. As such, practitioners need to be aware that, while some assurance can be given that your communications with the client can be made private, the online platform provider may be harvesting or mining your calls and selling/passing this info on. As the saying goes, if it is free online, you are the product. The challenge for research and codesign practitioners is that the sensitive information we hear may be used to direct advertising, both commercial and political, at our clients. When working with service providers it may be important to consider these issues in relation to any Indigneous Data Sovereignty commitments.
A useful starting point into this territory is Mozilla’s review of video call apps. They have looked at the terms and conditions of all the major video apps, and provide info and context on how privacy and data is managed, the controls in place, security and much more. We note that the open source apps, Jitsi Meet and Signal are good alternatives to the popular video call apps; they have strong security, they are free, and they aren't trying to capture data to make money. If you are in the position to consider your own online platform, check out this page by IF that shows how you can build services in ways that manage data appropriately and ethically.
LOOKING TO THE FUTURE
We have observed in the disruption to our current ways of working, a greater need and acceptance in making futures practice part of the wider participatory toolkit. The health and economic challenges present an opportunity to attend to both the immediate and the long term future we wish to shape. One interesting tool to highlight is Bright Spots hosted from NZ which encourages us to share new possibilities which help us to adapt in the face of rising inequalities, climate change, and other crises. Another global futures experiment shows how we can use Miro to develop new futures across the globe.
Ingrid Burkett, now at Yunus Centre Griffith University, has shared 'Roadmap to Recovery + Regeneration' which is “about co-creation, gathering the best examples of what’s been done, innovating to do things better, and ultimately aiming for better outcomes for all people, places and our planet. It’s about hope. Pragmatic and considered hope. It’s a starting point not a blueprint. This project is designed to foster co-creation and drive an agenda of recovery and regeneration.”
In conclusion, face-to-face practices were disrupted and we had to come up with innovative ways of evolving our practices to work online. As we have seen some whānau reach out into their own local networks for support during lockdown, we are reminded by Angie Tangaere of the power of relationships and reciprocity which will underpin the futures we want:.
“our practice is starting with creating respectful and enduring relationships. We don't engage with people because of a project, we engage with people to form enduring relationships...authentic connections. I think there is something really critical in that, because most systems or intervention responses don't begin with the relationship, they begin with a deficit approach to a problem.”
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*See for example Building Inclusive Communities Report and Achieving Digital Inclusion (IPANZ)