Co-design Training

Led by Professor Sonja Pedell, the Future Self and Design Living Lab (FSDLL) is passionate about helping businesses and government to understand their service users within a health and ageing context. 

Our core values include openness and collaboration, which is why we have embedded the co-design approach into new training programs. 

What is co-design?

Co-design is a collaboration between designers and non-designers to produce designed outcomes. Non-designers may include health care practitioners, care workers or service users who have deep knowledge about the problem that the co-design project is seeking to solve. In a co-design setting, non-designers lend their expertise across the whole design process; from project planning to design and evaluation. 

While the need for and benefit of co-design is widely recognised, tools to teach and support industry in understanding and coming up with their own co-design strategies and projects are lacking.

What is the FDSLL co-design program?

The FSDLL has created many co-design tools, methods and more flexible options to help partners conceptualise their own co-design practices, specific to their organisation.

We offer 1 or 2-day co-design experience courses to produce personalised methods, plans and proposals for your organisation using our co-design toolkit. We then train you on how to use and apply them in your organisation, or run 2-4 hour individual units that you can mix and match to create your own desired co-design training program. 

One of our specialised training resources is the “It’s to Create with” card deck, designed to complement our short courses for industry with a focus on health and ageing.

The card deck has been developed based on: 

• extensive literature review 
• evidenced-based learnings of how to apply co-design in the health and aged-care industry over the last four years 
• co-design training sessions with Living Lab industry partners.  

The toolkit consists of 44 cards comprising four categories (Definition, Foundation, Process, and Method cards) covering co-design basics and principles, the opportunity to create a co-design process, and a variety of key method suggestions.  

All cards include explanations, instructions and an academic reference for further reading.  

The cards received excellent feedback at the launching workshop (ALLIN conference) and the toolkit has been used by different organisations within the health and ageing sector thus far. It is efficient, easy to use and corresponds with varying industry needs for depth, adoption and individual tailoring in co-design.