Pushing Boundaries of Co-Design by Going Online: Lessons Learned and Reflections from Three Perspectives

The global COVID-19 pandemic made significant changes to our day-to-day lives, which impacted how we conduct research and design — including co-design. In this article, we present case studies from three different co-design groups that pushed the boundaries of traditional co-design, and conducted multiple co-design sessions (more than 150 total) over the last year and a half. The case studies for each team include: the transition to online co-design; the pros and cons of logistics and design tools utilized during the co-design sessions; and the advances, challenges, and surprises. We compare and contrast themes that emerged from the case studies and present additional dimensions that need to be addressed as researchers utilize online co-design and advance methods to conduct online co-design.