What is co-design?
Co-design is a participatory approach to creating solutions with community members based on their feedback. It combines lived experience and professional expertise to identify and create an outcome. It can be used in all aspects of life, from creating an app to introducing a major reform. Co-design helps build capacity, prioritises relationships and helps to share power in the community
Who uses it?
Co-design is increasingly being used by both government and the community sector as we now accept that crafting key public messages requires community involvement. Translations co-designed with your audience are simply better in terms of quality, impact and longevity. They are also likely to be more culturally appropriate and useful to consumers as well as their carers and families.
How will I know it works?
For co-design to be successful, it needs to be inclusive and outcome focused. Co-design can be used to create, redevelop and evaluate a service, product or system. All participants should be treated as equal collaborators, involved along the way, from framing the issue to developing and testing solutions. It’s based on feedback, advice and decisions from people with lived experience and experience of experts in the field, with ideas and solutions continually evaluated with the participants.
