01 / UNDERSTAND
What is a codesign workshop?
A codesign workshop brings people affected by a product or service into making and developing proposals alongside the team responsible for it. Participants contribute experience, priorities and design choices, rather than only reacting to a finished proposal.
A workshop is one part of a wider relationship. Attendance alone does not make a process codesign. Be clear about what participants can influence, who makes final decisions and how their contributions will be carried forward.
Why use Codesign Workshop?
People who use, deliver and maintain a service can notice different constraints and possibilities. Working on a shared artefact gives them something concrete to change and discuss.
The value comes from meaningful influence, not the number of sticky notes produced. If the central decision is already fixed, describe the activity honestly as feedback or consultation rather than promising shared design authority.
When to use it
USE IT WHEN
People affected by a service can meaningfully shape a decision that remains open.
Different experiences need to inform a shared proposal.
The team can support participation and follow through after the workshop.
When to choose another method
Use User Interviews when private exploration of individual experience is more appropriate.
Use Usability Testing when you need to observe use of a specific design.
Use an internal planning session if there is no genuine opportunity for participants to influence the outcome.
What you’ll need
Agree the purpose, decision boundaries and responsibilities with participants in advance. Plan recruitment around relevant experiences rather than convenience alone. Ask about access and communication needs, explain recording choices and arrange appropriate recognition or compensation for people’s time.
Prepare plain language materials and different ways to contribute. Allow people to decline personal disclosure. Assign someone to communicate what happens afterwards, including proposals that cannot be adopted.
What a codesign workshop needs
Keep the elements that help answer your question and support a decision.
A specific area participants can genuinely influence.
People with lived or practical experience, with gaps in representation acknowledged.
Conditions that let participants contribute, challenge and decline.
A map, sketch, scenario or prototype participants can change.
Proposals, disagreements, constraints and responsibility for choices.
A clear plan to explain outcomes and invite further response.
02 / PUT IT INTO PRACTICE
How to plan and run a codesign workshop
Keep evidence and assumptions distinct. Revisit your work when new information changes your understanding.
01
Agree what is open
Explain the decision and its constraints before inviting participation. Check that the scope matters to participants.
A community centre can change its arrival process, but cannot alter the building entrance this year.
02
Prepare participation
Recruit relevant perspectives and agree practical support, materials and ways to contribute.
Invite first time visitors and reception staff; offer a preparatory conversation and an alternative to group speaking.
03
Build a shared starting point
Invite participants to correct the team’s account of the situation. Avoid requiring personal stories in public.
Use a fictional arrival scenario that people can annotate, reject or replace.
04
Make and change proposals
Let participants manipulate the artefact and develop alternatives. Facilitators support the work without supplying the answer.
Groups rearrange welcome points, signs and staff interactions on a simple plan.
05
Discuss tensions and choices
Compare proposals against participant needs and real constraints. Record disagreements rather than forcing consensus.
An open welcome desk may improve visibility while making private questions harder to ask.
06
Close the loop
Agree next actions, owners and how participants will review the next version. Explain unresolved decisions.
Share two revised arrival concepts and the reasons behind them before planning a trial.
Example: arriving at a community centre
This is a fictional workshop scenario. A community centre wants to improve arrival for first time visitors. The entrance location is fixed, but signage, welcome arrangements and support can change.
Participants use a floor plan and movable cards to propose a visible welcome desk, a quieter place for questions and clearer directions. Reception staff explain when the desk cannot be continuously staffed. Visitors challenge a proposal that requires people to announce why they are attending within earshot of others.
The group develops two arrangements: a staffed welcome position at busy times and an obvious route to discreet assistance at other times. The team records the unresolved staffing question and commits to returning the revised concepts to participants. No claim is made that the workshop proves either option will work.
The design decision is now more specific: preserve discoverable help without making personal disclosure the price of receiving it.
03 / BELOW THE SURFACE
Below the surface: influence leaves a trace
An inviting workshop can still leave all important choices with the organisation. To examine participation, follow one contribution from the session into the next decision.
INFLUENCE
Which decision can participants change?
Name the boundary and who retains authority.
INTERPRETATION
Does the synthesis preserve the contribution?
Check meaning before translating it into a design requirement.
RETURN
How will people hear what happened?
Record a response route, owner and next review.
In the community centre example, the request for discreet assistance should appear in the revised plan, an unresolved question or an explicit explanation of why it cannot be adopted. If it disappears during synthesis, the workshop record alone does not demonstrate influence.
Keep a short chain: contribution, interpretation, decision and response to the participant. Ask participants whether the interpretation is fair. This is particularly useful when the team combines several comments into a single theme, because that can erase a minority concern.
Do not equate consensus with inclusion. A proposal can be popular while excluding someone with a different need. Record who may be disadvantaged and what remains unresolved. This trace is a practical accountability device for the project, not a validated measure of participation quality.
Codesign Workshop working canvas
Use page one to plan the open decision, participation, access and shared activity. Use page two to trace a contribution into a proposal, decision and response. Keep personal or sensitive information outside the shared canvas unless appropriate arrangements are in place.
Practical tips
Use artefacts people can alter rather than presentation slides alone.
Offer quieter and individual contribution routes as well as group discussion.
Check the interpretation of a contribution before turning it into a theme.
Common mistakes
Calling consultation codesign when the decision is already fixed.
Inviting participants without arranging access or preparation.
Treating the loudest or most common view as representative of everyone.
Ending the relationship when the workshop ends.
What you’ll get
Shared proposals, visible disagreements and a record of how participation affects the next decision. Use Service Blueprint to examine delivery implications and Paper Prototyping to develop an interaction for further review.