When @kellyanagram came out with Beyond Sticky Notes, I was intrigued to say the least.

Well, it turns out, it's an excellent co-design reference book, filled to the brim with helpful prompts, questions, and frameworks (just how I like them!). Highlights in the thread! https://twitter.com/kellyanagram/status/1285353594309337089

The book is organized in three parts.

The first is Foundations for Co-design, tackling definitions, principles, and such light-hearted topics as power, privilege, and equity.

The second is Six Mindsets for Co-design, and the third Methods for Co-design (self-explanatory!).

Starting with the definition of co-design itself, I appreciated the distinction between transactional versus transformational co-design, where the former aims at producing outputs, whereas the latter focuses on process, and aims at producing outputs *and* social outcomes.

I also really adored these "social movements" for co-design, which remind me a lot of how thinkers in this space and spaces adjacent to it have been pushing us to think differently about expertise, epistemology, survivance, engagement, participation, etc.

https://twitter.com/SFath/status/1318225761925427200

The part on power, privilege, and equity rightfully cites the work of @schock, @georgeaye, and @laurenstaceyw, and introduces this concept of "power literacy" which I'm now obsessed with.

How can we build our fluency in checking our own power and our practice of ceding it?

In thinking about pairing equity and design, Kelly Ann suggests a few different ways one can apply an equity lens to design.

(I would be remiss not to mention the work of @design__justice, @CRXLAB, @ReflexDesignC, @anaissie, @Equity_Design, and many others here!).

The book goes on to provide a series of helpful prompts to ask ourselves, "is co-design needed?"

Like @albanvillamil says, "We should constantly ask ourselves if the value of our research justifies a participant’s time and effort." https://www.shopify.com/partners/blog/user-research

Similarly, the book offers a set of prompts to ask "Do I need to lead co-design?"

I have a set of questions I ask myself before engaging on any new projects and many are similar. My new favorites though are: "who am I to the people I want to work with? Who would we be together?"

After these foundations are set, the book then goes on to the 6 mindsets of co-design, which I'll discuss one by one.

First, "elevating lived experience." I'm obviously biased with this one and feel so strongly about centering lived experience in design.

This sentence, however, gave me pause. "While love and design aren't often talked about together, they should be."

It reminded me of Andrew J. Jolivétte's notion of "radical love."

https://twitter.com/SFath/status/1318229685285744645

There's something there that I can't quite name, but it's there...

Another important aspect of elevating lived experience is "generous listening."

A great resource in that regard is the Feminist Realities Toolkit, which builds on feminist and gender justice movements to redefine the practice of co-creation. https://www.awid.org/resources/feminist-realities-our-power-action-exploratory-toolkit

And so is the idea of "listening without minimization." This is very much in line with a more trauma-informed approach to engaging with individuals, where it's crucial to validate the voracity of what someone is feeling, and "bear witness and affirm."

A second mindset for co-design that the author introduces is "being in the grey."

Some practices to "travel through complexity" include resisting quick fixes, using speculative tools, and managing one's own reactivity to ambiguity.

The third mindset is "valuing many perspectives," an important piece of which being having a systems perspective.

This is very much in line with what @multiplyequity writes about, including how historical context matters, and making structures visible: https://medium.com/equity-design/racism-and-inequity-are-products-of-design-they-can-be-redesigned-12188363cc6a

The fourth mindset for co-design is "curiosity," which can be practiced through humility ("learning to be wrong, creating space to connect with others, and leaving room to be surprised") as well as asking good questions, like the examples Kelly Ann provides.

The fifth mindset (and the one that surprised me!) is "hospitality." As a Moroccan person, I can't begin to explain how hospitality, generosity, goodwill were socialized to me as the foundation of engaging with others.

I really appreciated these 4 dimensions that spell it out.

The sixth and last mindset for co-design is "learning through doing." One element of that is learning to recover from failure, as contributor Imogen Parry describes in the "Fail Club."

(Which reminds me of the now defunct Fail Festival in DC: http://failfestival.org/ )

After covering all 6 mindsets, the book then gets into part three, the methods of co-design, which are structured along 6 phases of the co-design process:
- Build the conditions
- Immerse and align
- Discover
- Design
- Test and regine
- Implement and learn

A good chunk of the book is spent on the first step, "build the conditions," and deservedly so.

In forming co-design teams, Kelly Ann writes at length about the need to have: people with lived experience, provocateurs, and professionals.

I previously wrote about how teams are typically comprised of: (1) domain and subject matter expertise, (2) context and local culture expertise, and lastly (3) process expertise.

https://medium.com/studio-d/the-open-sesame-to-working-on-a-foundational-design-research-project-with-a-ten-person-team-3caca0128e67

But I'm eating my words because I like Kelly Ann's framework much better.

In engaging people with lived experience, this table struck me as an important one to keep in mind when considering advisory groups, and particularly in valuing meaningful engagement over tokenizing inclusion.

Another crucial element this phase is relationship building, because "if you don't have time to build relationships, you don't have time for co-design."

This part is also very much in line with what @adriennemaree talks about when urging us to "move at the speed of trust."

Another part that's not often talked about is *how* to extend invitations to join co-design movements.

This is a prime example of how the book dances between abstracting big notions and concepts from different texts and authors, and providing super tactical tips and frameworks.

A huge hat tip to how much time Kelly Ann spends diving into issues of recognition, attribution, and payment.

(If you haven't read my piece around the need for compensation, please do: https://medium.com/notes-off-the-grid/why-design-researchers-should-compensate-participants-a65252352f67 )

(I'm hitting the limits of Twitter threading so will go a bit faster through the remaining steps of the co-design process).

Phase 2 is "immerse and align" which is about getting to know the context, what's underway, what's been done. This is a helpful set of questions for that.

Phase 3 is the "discover" step. I *loved* this table with the 3 approaches to research: Researching for; Learning with; and Supporting others to lead.

It reminds me of the @dlab_mit model for participatory research: Design for; Design with; and Design by http://d-lab.mit.edu/innovation-practice/approach

Phase 4 is the "design" step. I wanted to highlight this table of questions to help assess ideas.

I've previously used dichotomy mapping by @EthicallyDesign ( https://www.designethically.com/dichotomy-mapping) and Moral Agent by Ethics for Designers ( https://www.ethicsfordesigners.com/moral-agent/ ) but this list is more focused.

Phase 5 is the "testing" step. Here, the one thing I thought to bring your attention to is this template to help develop a testing plan.

(Which made me realize that I've presented my rapid prototyping planning tool/framework to students but never publicly! I should fix that.)

And lastly, phase 6 is "implement and learn." This section starts with an important warning, in that "the voices of co-designers can be edited out as implementors and project managers take over."

Again, the book is chock-full of wisdom, and these are only some of the highlights!