Design-led Approach to Co-production of Values for Collective Decision-Making

Abstract

Experience Labs are design-led spaces for co-creating preferable futures by bringing academic, business and civic stakeholders to work together with citizens using a participatory design approach. Differing value systems of stakeholders, however, can pose challenges when working collaboratively. Experience Labs support exchange and co-production of values among diverse stakeholders by making them articulate and visible through design, to resolve conflict and to support meaningful decision-making towards progressing ideas whilst integrating a multiplicity of perspectives. In this paper, we discuss the creation of an ‘ethical imagination space’ to explore preferable futures with diverse stakeholders; the core values of the Experience Labs which support the creation of this space; and the key qualities that support the exchange and co-production of shared values to enable collective decision-making. We propose that the ‘next thinking’ for design involves consideration of the ways in which we engage with values in cross-sectoral collaborations to enable collective decision-making.