Digital Co-design

How to build trust with users for better ideation

My Role:

• Recruit participants through social media
• Conduct qualitative research (surveys, interviews, observations)
• Co-design, usability test, and iterate digital workshops on Miro
• Analyze results (content & narrative analysis, descriptive statistics)
• Synthesize Guidelines for digital co-design

Design Opportunity: The COVID-19 pandemic led to social distancing, doubt amongst expats in Sweden about the government’s actions, and designers needing to reimagine conducting digital co-design with users. How could designers respect social distancing but still build meaningful (rich/productive) relationships with users while co-designing remotely?



Methods: The context of information sharing between expats and the Swedish government was used as the premise to conduct digital co-design workshops with users. Participants were recruited through social media and all interactions were done through ICT.
Exploratory research, in the form of crowdsourcing, surveys, interviews, and observations (fly-on-the-wall & participatory) were conducted to gain a better understanding of the problem area and what pain points expats were facing. Empathizing with and understanding their struggles allowed us to co-create a digital co-design workshop for ideation. Information taken from the exploratory phase influenced the workshop activities and users were involved in usability testing as well. Their feedback led to further iterations of the workshop activities.


Process: Users were provided with “Quick Tips” and an Agenda PDF to help onboard them to the digital workshop in Miro. During usability testing, it was made apparent that users prefer to not read instructions and would rather try and error than read the text. As some users were going to conduct the workshop asynchronously, it was important to have all the information available to help them succeed. Yet it was learned that minimal text should be used, have separate workspaces for those that need the text and those that don't, and detail the instructions before each activity instead.

Results: Users expressed what they needed from a facilitator to share their ideas and opinions more openly. The identified needs of users could be gathered under the umbrella of trust and empowerment. By empowering users, trust can be built and ideation can become richer and more productive.
“Trust plays a HUGE role. I've participated in an innovation process in the UK. If we didn't trust the parties who financially supported the innovation process, the parties who contributed ideas, the parties who evaluated the ideas, and the parties who implemented process results, then innovation would never have happened.” -participant


Impact: The final design solution was a digital prototype for a co-design workshop in Miro for users to take an active role in ideation. As well as a set of guidelines for building trust with users in digital co-design. Trust is key when ideating and innovating with users, yet proves difficult when all interactions are digital and you never meet face-to-face. In order to facilitate trust with users as a designer, you need to develop rapport, empower users, create a digital platform that helps them succeed, and finally, remember that even though it is time consuming to achieve a high level of trust with users, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

• Date: 2020

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UX Design

Identifying and designing for users' needs

My Role:

• User research (online research)
• Create personas and user journeys
• Create digital sketches using Adobe XD and Sketch

Design Opportunity: Hotel employees engage with both guests and other staff members to personalize a guest’s experience and promote guest retention. Bookboost provides a platform for hotels to manage guest relations. The software needed to be easy to navigate, understand, and use in relation to the in-person interactions that take place in a hotel setting.

Methods: Understanding what hotel employees needed from the platform was key to making their experience more efficient. Personas and user journey maps were used to communicate requirements to stakeholders. What are users dependent on, where are potential pain points, and what opportunities can be identified for better guest retention. Digital sketches were further used to guide the development team to iterate on platform features.


Process: Not having direct access to users was not ideal, yet workarounds were made. Instead of interviewing users to find out what their pain points and needs are, different roles were researched instead. Hotel job postings, industry standards, OTA posts, and other online resources were reviewed to better understand what different stakeholders experience. This research resulted in personas and user journey maps, which guided the digital sketching process.


Results: Identifying that guests want to feel special, have a unique experience, and easy communication, influenced the design of the AI chat bot. Understanding what employees needed to complete tasks efficiently while responding to requests on many platforms led us to create a CRM that could facilitate delegation, task management, and better communication.

Impact: The personas and user journey maps I researched and developed provided a better understanding of who the users are and what types of challenges they face in their daily work life while interacting with our software. My designs contributed to the development of the AI chat bot and the CRM.

• Date: 2018

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Service Design

Creating a new service for families

My Role:

• Project manager (planning, documentation, train and supervise employees)
• Market and user research (online research and interviews)
• Created artifacts using Photoshop, Illustrator, and low-fi materials
• Iterate designs based on qualitative research

Design Opportunity: A collaborative partner (a children’s science center) offered children’s parties that were geared towards older children. In an attempt to further the vision of MyEsteeme (equal treatment and healthy self-esteem) and address the need for younger children’s parties, we created parties suitable for 4-8 year olds that could introduce children to the MyEsteeme characters and build confidence through fun, cooperative, and confidence building activities.

Methods: Competitor analysis was used to define the industry, identify who the potential customers are, and what they expect in terms of price and services. Qualitative market research was conducted with parents in Malmö through crowdsourcing and interviews to help establish what the target age group and desires of the customers could be. Once the parties were created, further qualitative research was done to consistently iterate on the party activities and services.


Process: Research was the first step in discovering the needs and desires of customers. Which led to an ideation and prototyping phase to create multiple activities for each of the five party themes. Further observations and interviews with customers and other stakeholders, resulted in many iterations of the products and services.


Results: Parents had a more educational and cooperative option for their younger children’s parties. A party that is not only entertaining, but also teaches teamwork, equality, and new facts in an enjoyable way.

Impact: The hope of combining MyEsteeme’s vision of building confidence in young children, and the third party’s vision of sparking interest in science amongst children was achieved. They had options for older children, but with our service, smaller children also had the opportunity to learn and be engaged in a meaningful way.

• Date: 2017
• Note: Promotional images by Oana V

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Co-design Workshops

Materializing dreams, visions, and concerns about shared living

My Role:

• Project manager (planning, delegating, and documentation)
• User research (interviews and observations)
• Ideating/creating the activities for the workshops with fellow team members.
• Co-construction of artifacts using laser cutter, woodworking machinery, and paper
• Co-facilitator and documentation of workshops

Design Opportunity: The design team of IxD masters students were to create a tangible toolkit where workshop participants can ideate new forms of shared living. This was an attempt to provide more socially and environmentally sustainable options to single family dwellings.

Methods: The research stage consisted of interviews with many potential stakeholders; the target group, people who live collectively, city planners, architects and interior designers. Visits to collective living communities and observations of co-design workshops further helped us to establish what needs to be kept in mind when ideating with participants about shared living. The initial research helped the team understand the practicalities, conflicts, and emotions that could come up when sharing living space. This allowed for the creation of several workshop methods; sensitizing, design game, and role play methods, in addition to potential cultural probes.


Process: Each workshop method sparked imagination, discussions, and encouraged interactions between participants and objects to ideate new ways of living collectively. However, the shortcomings of the workshops were that they required a trained facilitator and were dependent on storytelling to convey the results. We tried to address these by further iterating on the methods so they document themselves and suggested a secretary role.


Results: A tangible toolkit for people who are interested in shared living and plan to explore the concept further. Where they can consider practicalities, anticipate potential conflicts, and recognize emotions that could arise before moving forward.

Impact: There are many in Scandinavia who live in single family dwellings and experience loneliness. Our toolkit allows people to imagine and negotiate shared living in a safe and enjoyable space. Which can lead to more people living collectively in a socially and environmentally sustainable way.

• Date: 2019
• Note: images by Valentina U

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Interaction Design

Prototyping to understand a situation

My Role:

• User research (interviews and observations)
• Ideation
• Sketching
• Documentation
• Prototyping (cardboard prototypes and programming digital sketches on Arduino.)

Design Opportunity: The brief was to design light interactions for public spaces. We were not designing a light artefact, but prototyping different ways of experiencing and interacting with light. Which led us to improving user experience in underpasses through the introduction of light interactions.

Methods: Experience prototyping, observations, surveys, and interviews were used to better understand the situation and experience of underpass users. We identified that people feel uncomfortable in underpasses yet were unsure if they would go out of the way to interact with lighting in this situation. Iterative physical and digital prototyping and user testing, helped us explore materials and possible interactions in the second phase of our project.


Process: After experience prototyping, observations, and interviews we realized that the issue at our inspiration underpass is not lighting, but lack of visibility. There were sharp corners, stairs, and no view of the other end of the tunnel which leads to a feeling of uneasiness. One interviewee stated that we could make it as bright or give it as cool lighting as we want, but they still wouldn’t go down there because of the lack of visibility. This experience led to a shift from designing lighting solutions to make underpasses safer to making them more enjoyable using lighting. We then focused our prototyping on creating playful experiences.


Results: There are many other factors that contribute to the feeling of uneasiness in underpasses which have nothing to do with lighting. By creating and testing prototypes with different forms and functionality, it was revealed that buttons should be avoided in this situation and interactive tiles could work. This gives the user a choice to interact or not. Whichever the user chooses, feedback is provided by the illuminated tiles.

Impact: Our prototype explorations provided our testers/users a glimpse into what a more developed artefact could be. They could also envision how a finished artefact could benefit the situation of underpasses and make them more enjoyable.

• Date: 2018

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Social innovation

Playful interactions for social inclusion

My Role:

• User research (interviews and observations)
• Ideation
• Sketching
• Documentation
• Prototyping (experimenting with low-fi materials for look and feel)

Design Opportunity: Newcomers to a city find it difficult to meet others outside of work or school. Supporting the municipality’s goal to improve social sustainability, we wanted to create an opportunity for users to feel comfortable approaching others.

Methods: Semi-structured interviews and observations at different park locations were conducted to find out who and why people go to parks and how they currently go about finding friends. Sketching, prototyping, and user testing provided feedback on the different prototype iterations.


Process: The original idea was to create an artefact which signifies openness to meeting others. However, fieldwork and testing informed us that relatability plays a major role. People are more likely to approach others while engaged in a shared activity or interest. We shifted focus to not only creating an artefact but an entire experience that could go along with it.


Results: "Sparks in the Parks" facilitates inclusive interactions where users are visibly and socially approachable. Since the events are organized, participants know that if they come across others in the park with a "spark", they are open to interacting. They can then discuss common interests in a playful manner.

Impact: By providing topics of discussions, artefacts, and organized times, users who seek social interactions (but find it difficult to increase their social circle) can participate and feel more confident approaching others for conversation.

• Date: 2018
• Note: final prototype & images by Anton F

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