What are the key differences between human-centered design, co-creation, and user-created design?

Human-centered design is 'designed for' users, focusing on their experience. Co-creation is 'designed with' users, involving them as equal partners. User-created design (or creative capacity building) is 'designed by' users, empowering them to become designers themselves.

What are the benefits of co-creation in humanitarian settings?

Co-creation offers tangible benefits like developing design and problem-solving skills, and building relationships. Intangible benefits include restoring agency for displaced individuals, building confidence, combating dependency, and increasing empathy and understanding between humanitarian actors and affected populations.

What is the MIT D-Lab Co-Creation Toolkit?

The toolkit is a curriculum designed for graduate students and humanitarian organizations to learn about and implement co-creation. It includes frameworks for participation, methods for creating an enabling environment, and various design tools and techniques for different stages of the design process.

How does the toolkit address bias in co-creation?

The toolkit includes modules on understanding bias, differentiating between unconscious and conscious biases, and recognizing how personal experiences and media influence perceptions. Activities are designed to expose participants to their own biases and encourage critical self-reflection.

What is the role of power dynamics in co-creation?

Power dynamics are crucial in co-creation because they can affect who participates and whose voice is heard. The toolkit explores visible and invisible power, encouraging participants to recognize power differences and find ways to share advantages and lift others up to ensure equitable participation.

How does the Co-Creation Toolkit ensure inclusion?

Inclusion is fostered by acknowledging the richness in diversity and actively identifying potential barriers like gender, age, disability, language, or education. Tools like sketch modeling are used to promote participation for all members, regardless of literacy or background.

What are the stages of the design process covered by the toolkit?

The toolkit focuses on key stages of the design process: identifying opportunities, framing the problem (using tools like the Problem Framing Wheel), generating ideas (through warm-up activities like 'What is This?'), building solutions, and gathering feedback.

Can you give an example of a co-creation activity from the toolkit?

Yes, an example is the 'Co-creating Solutions' activity where participants pair into groups, find an interesting item in their environment, and then work together to design a solution that adds value or promotes well-being for refugees or displaced populations using all items from their group.

Where does MIT D-Lab work in humanitarian settings?

MIT D-Lab works in refugee camps in Northern Uganda through local NGOs, in South Sudan with internally displaced communities, and with unaccompanied minors in Athens, Greece, focusing on practical, hands-on solutions and collaborative design training.

Key Moments

The MIT D-Lab Co-Creation Toolkit: Bringing people together to co-design solutions

MIT OpenCourseWare

Education4 min read89 min video

May 13, 2022|278 views|4

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Key Moments

TL;DR

MIT D-Lab shares a toolkit for co-design with refugees, focusing on bias and inclusion.

Key Insights

Co-creation involves designing *with* affected populations, not just for them, aiming to restore agency and combat dependency.

The MIT D-Lab Co-Creation Toolkit offers structured activities for participation frameworks, creating enabling environments, and design tools.

Understanding and addressing unconscious and conscious biases is crucial for equitable co-creation, as personal experiences and media influence perceptions.

Power dynamics significantly impact participation, and the toolkit includes activities to surface and manage these differences.

Inclusion is fostered through methods like sketch modeling, which accommodates diverse literacy levels and ways of expressing ideas.

The design process stages (problem framing, idea generation, building, feedback) are interconnected, with co-creation emphasizing end-user involvement throughout.

INTRODUCTION TO MIT D-LAB AND CO-CREATION

The session introduces MIT D-Lab's work, particularly its Co-Creation Toolkit, designed to foster collaboration between humanitarian actors and displaced populations. Amy Smith and Martha Thompson from MIT D-Lab explain their backgrounds. Co-creation is presented as a vital approach for designing solutions *with* communities, contrasting it with 'design for' (user-centered) and 'design by' (user-created) paradigms. The goal is to move beyond dependency and restore agency among refugees and displaced individuals by empowering them as active participants in the design process.

UNDERSTANDING CO-CREATION AND ITS PARADIGMS

Co-creation is defined as an intentional and respectful process where affected populations and designers collaborate across the entire design process, from problem definition to implementation. This involves shared problem-solving and skill transfer, with all stakeholders engaged as equals. The session differentiates between consultation (input gathering), partnership (decision-making involvement), and leadership (autonomy and direction). Co-creation, within the partnership level, is highlighted as particularly challenging yet rewarding due to the diverse backgrounds of participants.

THE CO-CREATION TOOLKIT: STRUCTURE AND COMPONENTS

The MIT D-Lab Co-Creation Toolkit is a curriculum for graduate students and humanitarian organizations interested in participatory design. It comprises three main components: participation frameworks, creating an enabling environment, and design tools/techniques. The toolkit aims to expand the understanding and practice of participation, focusing on both the quality (how well people participate) and the extent (at which stages and how deeply) of engagement. It provides practical guidance for planning and implementing effective participatory processes.

ADDRESSING BIAS AND POWER DYNAMICS

A significant part of creating an enabling environment involves addressing biases and power dynamics. The toolkit includes activities to help participants recognize their unconscious and conscious biases, which can stem from evolutionary instincts, past experiences, or media influences. Understanding the difference between these types of biases and engaging in experiential activities, like analyzing images of participants, helps reveal assumptions. Similarly, recognizing and managing power differentials related to race, gender, age, education, and other social factors is crucial for ensuring equitable participation.

FOSTERING INCLUSION THROUGH DESIGN TOOLS

The toolkit emphasizes inclusion, acknowledging that diverse perspectives enrich the design process. Barriers to inclusion, such as gender, age, disability, language, and literacy differences, are identified. Methods like 'sketch modeling' are presented as effective tools because they are simple, low-cost, fast, and provide a visual means of communication. This approach allows for gathering input and feedback from a broader range of community members, ensuring their voices are heard and integrated into the design.

DESIGN PROCESS STAGES AND PRACTICAL ACTIVITIES

The toolkit guides participants through key design process stages: identifying opportunities, framing problems, generating ideas, building solutions, and gathering feedback. Problem framing is stressed as critical for setting the right direction. Practical activities, like a 'What is this?' game (e.g., finding alternative uses for a hammer) and a group co-building exercise (integrating found objects to create a solution for displaced populations), demonstrate how creative thinking and collaborative problem-solving can be applied in a co-creation context.

MIT D-LAB'S GLOBAL HUMANITARIAN WORK

The presentation briefly touches upon MIT D-Lab's field work in various humanitarian settings, including refugee camps in Uganda, South Sudan, and with unaccompanied minors in Athens, Greece. These projects involve training local trainers and establishing innovation centers to foster local ecosystems of innovation. The emphasis remains on collaborative approaches and practical, often technology-related, solutions developed in partnership with the communities they serve.

ENGAGEMENT AND FUTURE COLLABORATION

The session concludes by inviting participants to become involved in piloting the toolkit, learning more about co-creation activities, and collaborating with MIT D-Lab. A survey link is provided for interested individuals to share their contact information and areas of interest. The organizers express gratitude for the participants' engagement and highlight the ongoing need for generative ecosystems for collective work in supporting refugee and displaced communities.

Mentioned in This Episode

●Tools

●Organizations

●Concepts

●People Referenced

Common Questions

Co-creation is a design paradigm where users and designers are on the same team, participating together throughout the entire design process. This includes idea generation, problem framing, decision-making, and problem-solving, with a focus on empowering the affected population.