Keep the interest alive - Part II

FEEDBACKS - UPDATES

// Description

Congratulation! If you are reading this last tip you have arrived at one great point for your participatory design, but there is still something else to do.

A complete co-design experience needs also a "post-phase", that we called "Recognition Phase", which requires a strict maintenance and an organizational capability.

As before the actual co-design sessions (during which people get their hands dirty) there is, most of the time, a determined strategy in engaging and involving people by means of meetings, newsletter, exc as after the co-design sessions there should be an ambitious strategy as well.

This strategy can be handled in various ways and through different tools, but it always has a specific goal: making people aware about the project updates by receiving and exchanging feedbacks. Offline and online involvement are both pretty efficient.

The tools might be the same of those used for the involvement of the communities, but, obviously the informations are going to change in the layout and in the content. The new informations should be still interesting and able to provoke the curiosity of the people.

See Keep the interest alive - Part I tip for more details about the different involving online channels.

// In other words

• Don't lose the contact with the participants;

• Keep them involved even after the sessions;

• Show them the results, exchange feedbacks and keep them up to date about the past sessions and the further project;

• Make a list about the new ways and tools that you want to use in this phase;

• Be captivating, spontaneous and clear;

• Schedule a timetable.

// opencare experience

After our two co-design sessions, we tried to not lose the contact with the participants, who were very interested and enthusiastic about the co-design experience. So, first of all, we decided to organize a third meeting after few days from the second session. This because we found out that after two evenings of great workout a more relaxing and sharing time is the least we could do to appreciate their efforts.

This meeting was totally different from the previous two collaborative and productive sessions, it was more like an aperitif open to discussions and prompt feedbacks.

We didn't declare just the winner project, we explained and illustrated to the audience how we have managed the entire selection process indeed. In this way we gave them the possibility to be aware and to feel integral part of the project. Therefore, after the slide presentation, the participants were ready to start a discussion, explaining their doubts and considerations about our choise and decisions. It was a very interesting moment of sharing knowledge and ways of thinking.

After the presentation and exchange of views, we enjoyed greatly the end of the meeting and the end of our first co-design experience with a delicious buffet.

See Recognition Phase paragraph to read any detail of the meeting.

Last but not least, we continued to publish some blog posts and send the newsletter about some case studies, in order to keep the interest alive until we are going to start the prototyping phase.