How can ideas be transformed from an abstract concept into something concrete? How do you find a common language for a brand that needs to be able to speak to different people? This is what a co-design session is and how it is carried out, a design method designed to be done with and for the client.
Co-design, also known as participatory design, is a design approach that actively involves stakeholders in the idea generation phase and the creation of a concept, product or service with the aim of sharing needs, discussing critical issues and jointly identifying guidelines for a project.
The workshop involves a user group of about ten people: employees, partners, but also customers and end users, with the aim of aligning the point of view of all the stakeholders involved to quickly identify valid project opportunities , taking into account the experience with the brand of each participant. In fact, the activities are structured in such a way as to bring all participants into dialogue, transforming them into co-authors of the project.
Therefore, people with different skills and operational levels will work on the same table, but through Co-design they will be able to channel and align their ideas towards a common goal with the aim of defining some of the criteria that will affect the future development of the project.
These types of activities can be carried out to design a brand from scratch, design a product, design a communication strategy and all business activities that connect a company with its audience.
The origin of participatory design has its roots in the 1970s when the United States imported from Scandinavia the methods used by trade unions to facilitate workers to design IT systems together that had a direct impact on their work. It was, however, in the 1980s with Donald Norman and the release of his book ‘Design of Everyday Things ‘ – translated into ‘The Masochist’s Coffee Pot’ for the Italian public – that this activity began to take off. It was at this time in fact that he first coined the term ‘user-centred design’, definitively marking the transition to a design mentality focused on human needs. In the 2000s, the term evolved into ‘human-centred design’ and the Design Thinkingculture developed.
“Great innovation is built on existing ideas, repurposed with vision” – Jake Knapp
It was thanks to Jake Knapp and his book ‘Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days‘, published in 2016, that the idea of actively involving stakeholders around a table finally took shape. His method? A five-day process to move in a streamlined way from problem to prototype.
How to do Sprint Design in 3 hours?
What if we don’t have five days to focus exclusively on a single project? Fortunately, Knapp himself has devised a simplified version of his Design Sprint that consists of a single three-hour session in which to identify the key factors that can define a brand.
The first part of the activity will last 15 minutes and should define what the long-term vision is by answering the question: where will my brand be in 20 years?
Step two, taking Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle as a reference, define the “why”, “how” and “what” of your brand by answering these questions in sequence:
- Why does your brand exist? What is the ultimate goal?
- How does it set out to achieve this purpose?
- What does it do to achieve its purpose?
It is easy to be pragmatic and explain what product your company sells or what service it offers. What is difficult, however, is to touch people’s hearts, to inspire and motivate them to believe in your own ideal.
