How do you choose the right tools and methods for co-design with your community?

Don’t choose the best tool. In fact you can’t, there’s no such when it comes to community. The goal is to find the fittest! A suitable and fairly easy tool.

I select tools based on the community's characteristics and needs. This involves assessing their technological accessibility, cultural context, and preferences. I often start with open dialogues to understand their comfort level with various methods, ensuring inclusivity and effective participation.

One thing that I find helpful when supporting organizations and leaders in engaging communities is that it is critical to also know what you are NOT able to do or offer. Sometimes this is based on funding restrictions or it can also be based on skill or knowledge limitations. Doing a self-reflection and assessment based on your purpose will support being transparent when communicating with the community you want to engage.

Through my research, I've learned that choosing the right tools for co-design with your community depends on the community's size, demographics, and technological accessibility. Methods like surveys, interactive workshops, and digital collaboration platforms can be effective, but it's important to ensure they are accessible and user-friendly for all community members.

I completely agree with Jadson. It is all about finding tools that meet the needs and capabilities of your community (and adjusting them accordingly as needed). Regardless of your community, I think it is important to keep the following at the forefront when choosing your tools: – Great UI/UX – Easy to navigate/use – Small learning curve with easy adaptability If you ignore these factors, you will find members lose engagement in those tools. Make it easy for your members to get the value they desire.

Humans are notoriously terrible at articulating needs, especially when it's new and innovative. When Henry Ford, the inventor of the car, asked people what they wanted they said a faster horse. It's your job as the community leader to bridge the gap between what members say they want and what they actually need.

The best way to understand your community is to join them. Marketing and communication skills are important, but always remember that a shared experience and objective is the thing that makes a community what it is. Understanding your members is a natural experience when you engage in the ecosystem, are a user of the products, and experience similar points of user friction.

As a health equity strategist, understanding the community is pivotal in selecting the right tools and methods for co-design. This involves: Tailored Approach: Recognizing that each community has unique needs and preferences, and adapting tools and methods accordingly. Community Insights: Gathering comprehensive insights through surveys, interviews, and other participatory methods to deeply understand community dynamics. Inclusive Co-Creation: Actively involving the community in the creation of these tools, ensuring they are accessible and relevant to their specific context. This approach ensures that co-design efforts are not only effective but also equitable, respecting and responding to the diverse needs within the community.

To truly understand your community and their needs, feedback forms and interviews go a long way. To be able to co-design with your community, you need to be able to understand what they want and need first. Feedback forms are a powerful tool, as you can also make them anonymous, if this gives your members more confidence. At the same time, you might have some eager members, who are willing to conduct interviews to give more insight into their needs. Try it out!

Before you start and co-design a community, you should know your (future) members. Examples of this are: where are they gathering already and what are their needs? Useful tools include outlining their jobs to be done, leveraging user stories, personas, and user journeys. Another important thing to consider is your current tooling and how the community will fit in. Are their subject matter experts present for the to-be-implemented community tool? Lastly, leveraging a 3rd-party to implement your tool might be worth it. For example, if you try to accelerate your timeline or your internal teams have no room for additional projects.

I think exploring human centered design methods works well with these types of projects. I'm especially fond of Mural and the interactive, online whiteboard space. They have great templates for so many community-based methods of HCD like stakeholder mapping, rose/bud/thorn, statement starters, mind maps, etc.

In my practice, the key to successful co-design is balancing diverse methods like storytelling or prototyping with the community's unique context. This involves: Context-Specific Selection: Carefully choosing methods that align with the community's culture and communication style. Combining Strengths: Integrating different tools to complement each other, enhancing engagement and insight gathering. Practicality Check: Always ensuring the feasibility of these methods in terms of available resources and time. This approach not only tailors the co-design process to the community's needs but also ensures effective and sustainable outcomes.

In the first instance, the best way to co-design is to start off with a brainstorming and feedback session. And the most interactive way to do this is doing it on Whiteboards and watch as members interact in real time on your board. I'm a big fan of Canva's new Whiteboards, where you can even set a timer.

We focus on incorporating co-design across many levels/platforms. A discussion/collaboration may begin in our Slack community, then be brought up in one of our Ask the Community Anything events, and then be a topic of a weekly PORCH Talk session. Where one member engages may be different from another. Ensuring tools are used in collaboration allows members to find value in different forms. Everyone learns in different ways and through different mediums.

Don't rush to draw conclusions in the testing phase or after initial rollout. Communities are built on habitual behavior and change is hard. Something that may seem like a flop at first may take time to achieve adoption. Be patient.

You should never stop learning, adapting, and improving. What we started with has changed many times to get to where we are today – and we are still learning and improving with each day that goes by. We started with using many tools (too many!) – Luma for events, Google Drive for the content library, AirTable for the member directory, etc. We quickly learned that multiple tools made the member experience too complex and did not take advantage of different of things we put a lot of effort into simply because they did not know how to access it. Now, we have moved to Disco where everything in on one central hub and it is much better! The point is, never stop asking your members what works for them and learning how you can make it better!

100%! The member should be involved in the entire process. From asking the community what works for them to how we can improve, etc., to letting them know that their feedback was heard and that the change has been made. This not only shows that you are passionate about improving the community and delivering value to the members but also empowers them to be a part of the growth of the community. This fosters stronger relationships and more committed/engaged members.

Co-design is a journey that thrives on collaboration and shared victories. To honour the efforts of your community, it's essential to actively share and celebrate the outcomes of your co-design process. This isn't just about the final product; it's about recognizing the collective creativity, hard work, and dedication that brought it to life. Utilize various platforms—whether through reports, presentations, or community events—to highlight these achievements. By celebrating together, you reinforce a sense of ownership and pride within the community, fostering a deeper affinity and sense of connection and commitment to future endeavors.

Sticky notes. Not even kidding. Collaborating with a facilitated process either online or in person with sticky notes can truly change the world (or at least your community.)

I think the purpose of co-designing with your community is to choose the tools that meet the needs of ongoing engagement and execution. But if this question means to ask what tools do you use TO co-design with your community, then when we're online we use Mural (or Miro) and Zoom. If we're in person we use a big whiteboard, sticky notes, and Sharpie markers!

For us, it's all about keeping it simple and inclusive. We pick tools that anyone can use, no matter their tech skills. Our methods? They've got to spark real conversations and creative teamwork. It’s a bit of trial and error, always tweaking based on what the community tells us works best. The bottom line? If it helps everyone get involved and share their ideas, it's the right tool for us.

Communities run the risk of becoming exclusive. One their purpose, activities and leadership has been established, it is good practice to 'rock the boat'. That'll bring fresh air into the community and expand its circle of influence, knowledge and value.