Across a range of projects have been working in new, sometimes unusual ways. We aim to capture and share these processes and methods, to encourage sharing of knowledge and development of future practice. We realise we can’t do this alone, but we do want to add our thoughts to the mix so that others can learn what to use and what not to use on future projects.

Good design is sustainable design, it is a process that uses a sequence of steps that defines problems, discovers solutions and makes them real. Creativity generates ideas and innovation exploits them. Good design connects the two shaping them to become practical and attractive products and services.

Design Council

The Dott Approach

Our approach uses collaborative design methods and processes to work with communities to design and develop new solutions to local issues. We work with local and national designers who bring innovation and user-centred methods to our projects. Alongside these design professionals we use the knowledge, skills and creativity of the people who will benefit, and the people who will deliver a service or product within the community. The Dott process is therefore highly participatory, in that ‘users’ work throughout the process and are part of the ‘design team’ devising and testing concepts and therefore owning the solutions. Our process typically follows five stages:

Diagnose phase

This phase is about setting up the project, and diagnosing the nature of the problem, including:

• Identifying existing research and activity happening around the issue
• Bringing together a co-design team i.e. the right people to be involved in the project
• Building a picture of the existing services, expertise and best practice
• Sharpening the brief toward a more focused issue that is closely aligned to the community.

Co-discovery phase

In this stage, research with the wider community is undertaken focussing and examining the local issue. The design teams work with user groups, particularly local communities, and a wider stakeholder group including service providers and other experts. We use a range of well known and emergent design tools such as observation, cultural probes, design ethnography, user diaries to name a few. The most important insights are often ‘latent’, the things people do or want that they don’t always tell you.

Co-design phase

Co-designing is where the team and/or community are involved in the idea generation with professional designers and other experts. The design team uses the research with local people in the co-discovery phase to generate new ideas and innovation.

The Design Team builds on the key ideas from the co-design stage, creating tangible aspects to them so they can be communicated and prototyped with the community, including:

• Building on ideas, moving from sketches to formalised visualisations
• Prototyping of ideas (which can be ‘low fidelity’ mock ups or working prototypes)
• Gathering feedback from local people on improving ideas before implementation.

Co-delivery

Outputs and outcomes at this stage vary. Dott projects typically create innovative ways that people can engage with the design solution in the medium or longer term, including:

• Transferring ownership of the project to the community
• Ensuring project management skills are in place for implementation
• Scaling the project or business planning
• Ongoing design changes.

Legacy

Legacies can include the visible outputs from the projects or also embedded legacies such as:

• The thinking, ideas and practices that reside in, remain and continue being used by the individuals who participated on the projects.
• Participants who become champions for design, sharing new approaches of thinking and doing in their organisations and communities.

Embedded legacies are not highly visible and usually manifest themselves in other ideas and areas that may or may not be related to the Dott project.

Every project we work on is different. It is the expertise of the Design team to choose the methods that suit individual problems, in order to bring to life opportunities. During Dott Cornwall we will build a method bank of the techniques and tools we are using. For now take a look at our projects section to see some examples of how we are working on the ground.

Design Method 1 - Observation

Observation is a design method to identify the problems that can arise when people interact with products, services and environments.

How: Depending on your project, you might want to make general observations of something that already exists for example, how people move around a shopping centre, or how people in the street use their mobile phones. Or you might need to create specific situations to test a design. This could mean observing how people complete a specified task on a computer in a simulated environment, or observing how people use a prototype of a new product.
You could record your observation through photos or video. This lets you analyse the material after the event (and even catch important details you might have missed, like the expressions on people's faces). Photographs or videos can also provide evidence to show to other partners or stakeholders in your project.
Resources: Optional: camera, video camera

Design Method 2 - Scenarios

Scenarios is a design method that helps you develop ideas that involve interactions with multiple users over a period of time

How: Define a set of characters who will use the product or service you are designing. Consider the details of their lives - their job, their regular activities and their attitudes.
Identify key moments where these users interact with your product or service, then realise them as scenes in a short text or a storyboard.
Test the scenario on users or yourself. Use what you learn to improve the design further.
To investigate the full scope of user interactions, you may need to construct three or four scenarios around the needs of a different character and improve them with each iteration.
You could act out your scenario by role playing

Resources: Someone who can draw, sheets of paper, markers, a video camera or computer depending the realisation method you have chosen

Design Method 3 – User Diaries

User diaries is a design method to gain insight into people's lives, particularly patterns of behaviour.

How: Supply users with a diary and ask them to keep a written record of their impressions, circumstances and activities related to the relevant aspects of their lives. The diary can be kept over a week or sometimes longer. Be careful not to ask leading questions that will distort the results you get: keep your questions open-ended and your language simple.

You could give your users single-use cameras. These are an effective way to get users to record incidents, or environments. Photo diaries, which can be used in conjunction with a written diary or as a stand-alone piece of evidence, can be as simple as pictures of users' houses, or the contents of their fridge, but still provide valuable insights to users' habits.

Provide a pre-printed notebook or diary with prompts or questions. Make sure the visual design makes it easy to complete.

Talk through the diary in a follow-up interview. Alternatively, you could simply supply a stamped addressed envelope for the user to return the pack by post.

Resources: Optional: Diary or notebook and pen. Single-use cameras.

Reproduced from Design Council, copyright Design Council.
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