Abstract
Co-design describes a ‘collective creativity as it is applied across the whole span of a design process’ (Sanders and Stappers 2008: 6). This is an ongoing process of developing a product or service in collaboration with all those involved using and realising that product or service. In this chapter, we review the value and opportunities of engaging healthcare professionals in co-design, as well as the challenges of doing so. We describe potential strategies for dealing with these challenges, detailing design frameworks, methods, tools, mindsets, educational resources, and other means that help to promote and sustain engagement and scaffold the ‘collective creativity’ of co-design. Finally, we consider how these engagement strategies can be maximised as tailored configurations of synchronous/asynchronous, online/in person, and digital/physical options. Across the chapter, we use vignettes to illustrate the strategies – these vignettes come from both reflections on our own experiences of engaging healthcare professionals, and from conversations with researchers, designers, and healthcare professionals during the production of our co-design resources at the King’s Health Partners Digital Health Hub, based in the United Kingdom. Here, we demonstrate how a variety of resources delivered in different ways in tandem provides a flexible approach for healthcare professionals and others who would like to learn about co-design and how to engage others in the process. This chapter will be useful for anyone looking to engage healthcare professionals in co-design, whether they are themselves a healthcare professional, researcher, designer, student, Small and Medium Enterprise, or other.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Health Systems Thinking |
| Editors | Alexander Komashie, Nicholas Ciccone, Anja M Maier, John Clarkson |
| Publisher | Springer |
| Publication status | Accepted/In press - 2025 |
