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Over the past decade, we've been part of major European Earth observation initiatives, working to connect data and services with users across sectors and communities
The co-design methodology focuses on engaging user communities and fostering resilient, collaborative relationships with them. Its aim is to facilitate the identification of actionable solutions that address specific needs while supporting long-term sustainability and adaptability. Our methodology is specifically tailored to navigate the complexities of fragmented multi-stakeholder ecosystems, where interactions are often intricate and, at times, difficult to set up in a sustainable way.
Worksheet 0 — Introduction and overview of the co-design methodology.pdfWorksheet 0
Introduction and overview of the
co-design methodology
This document introduces the Co-design Toolkit as the primary entry point for understanding and applying co-design methods in the context of DestinE. While the toolkit is particularly useful for service providers, it could be adaptable and relevant to a larger range of stakeholders, including researchers, policymakers, and data providers. Readers are encouraged to consider how the co-design methods may resonate with their specific perspectives and use cases, and feedback is welcome to refine and expand its applicability.
The structure of this introductory document is as follows: 1) A brief introduction to the co-design methods for DestinE 2) A detailed presentation of the proposed co-design methodology and the accompanying toolkit
To access the worksheets and templates associated with the different phases of the DestinE co-design methodology, please visit the “Methodology” tab.
WHAT IS CO-DESIGN ?
«A form of collaborative innovation that puts a specific emphasis on the need of (re)inventing the relationships between the involved actors».
This approach to co-design encompasses three critical aspects:
01
Design aspect
Co-design is directed towards the exploration of innovative solutions as to design services that suits users’ needs at best.
02
Collective aspect
Co-design lies on involving a heterogeneous set of actors that must collaborate to design the service.
03
Crisis aspect
Co-design should support the structuring of effective interaction patterns in situations where collaboration seems unlikely.
Why do we need co-design ?
Connecting Earth Observation data and services with potential users can be challenging, as it requires bridging stakeholders from diverse sectors who may have little in common and might not even be aware of each other’s existence. In other words, the stakeholders are separated by a form of “grand-distance”, where they appear as largely unknown to each other. Co-design methods stand as a consistent way to answer the key challenges faced by the EO ecosystem:
Crossing grand-distance to reach users
Overall, in the field of earth system science and data, the issue of grand distance unfolds in a particularly extreme way (Barbier, 2023). Numerous stakeholders could benefit from these data and models. However, many potential users are unaware not only of how to leverage these resources, but even that such data might bring value to their activities. At the same time, the experts who master these data may not fully grasp the sector-specific needs or challenges that could be addressed through earth system data.
Under these conditions, collective action seems far from guaranteed. Indeed this grand distance creates multiple challenges across various dimensions for the stakeholders:
Cognitive: Stakeholders may have different understandings of the challenges they face, requiring the creation of a shared understanding.
Technical: They may possess varying levels of expertise, which can hinder their ability to communicate efficiently or design effectively together.
Organizational: They must navigate the boundaries of their respective organizations and adapt to new processes and ways of working.
In the context of EO initiatives, these challenges even unfold at a deeper, systemic level since a key objective is to connect industry to long term sustainable applications that answer a concrete user demand. Beyond raising awareness about the potential of data, the central issue thus lies in bridging those with the technical capacity, such as service providers who understand the long-term potential of the data, with actors capable of generating value from it as to align the services provided with the very user demand. Therefore, the focus enlarges from educating users about data to supporting intermediaries who can identify latent demands and markets, create meaningful services, and build bridges to user communities, effectively transforming raw data into applied, sustainable impact.
The proposed co-design methodology supports a collective exploration by the EO stakeholders, their potential users, and other relevant actors, fostering mutual learning and shared understanding.
Putting complex chains of actors into motion
Developing services based on data requires a complex chain of stakeholders with diverse skills and interests to be set in motion.
This effort could be schematically described as connecting various and highly heterogeneous socio-economic ecosystems: the ecosystem of data science at large, with the various ecosystems of potential usages, that do not share the same dynamics, time horizons (e.g. very long cycles to develop new measuring instruments compared to short timeline of actions in the data usage context), performance logics and competencies.
Co-design specifically aims at connecting these various and heterogeneous ecosystems of data and usages, through multi-stakeholder mobilization and engagement. The proposed co-design method relies on disentangling the various needs to identify the right sequence of interactions within the chain of stakeholders.
Acknowledging this stakeholder diversity and positioning, various potential co-design interactions emerge, necessitating careful structuring to optimize usefulness, usability, and operability of the potential service. This highlights the necessity of a precise diagnosis of co-design needs, a task central to our user monitoring framework's purpose.
Managing contextualization and genericity
The objective of a successful EO initiative is to aim to support the development and dissemination of data and services that go beyond a single use case or user, demonstrating broad relevance and strong potential for scalability across diverse contexts.
For EO stakeholders, this implies to closely manage the tension between two potentially competing objectives in service design:
Providing features that are context-specific enough to meet the precise needs of particular user groups and integrate seamlessly into their workflows and practices.
Defining generic technical building blocks that could be subsequently reused and adapted to meet similar needs across different user communities.
In other words, it implies to find the right balance between contextualization and genericity to ensure that services are both tailored and reusable across multiple use cases.
Throughout the co-design process, various mechanisms can be enacted to reconcile the need for contextual solutions with the degree of necessary for service reuse. The co-design toolkit offers practical tools and best practices to support these mechanisms.
Key objectives and principles of our co-design methodology
As a methodology for user-driven development of data-intensive services, our co-design methodology relies on essential objectives and key principles that service providers should keep in mind.
From the perspective of the relationship between actors
Users needs as a critical starting point
The co-design methodology starts from the concrete needs of end users. It therefore acknowledges that technological solutions are only as valuable as their alignment with real-world problems and user contexts. Such user-centric approach prioritizes a deep understanding of the users' activities, the challenges they face, and the specific goals they aim to achieve.
Equally important is recognizing users' competencies, constraints, and contexts of use to ensure that the services are not only functional but also usable and impactful.
The co-design methodology provides tools and best practices to make sure this depth of user knowledge is possible through close, iterative interactions, where mutual learning occurs, and users actively shape the solutions to meet their needs effectively.
Designing the 'co-' as an imperative
An effective co-design approach implies to acknowledge from the start that the co-design actions should not only focus on the design of the service, but also on the design of the relationships, i.e. it has to design the ‘co’. In this respect, the outcomes of interactions should include agreements for future cooperation between participants.
The co-design methodology provides, tools, guidance and best practices to ‘design the co-’.
Resilient-fit as a key goal
The co-design actions should aim at establishing a ‘resilient fit’ between participants, rather than a ‘quick fit’.
‘Quick-fit’ actions would focus on finding one type of interaction between data and usages ecosystems (single list of requirements with one user, in a punctual relationship). This is the most current pathway in developing “proof-of-concepts”.
Instead, ‘resilient-fit’ actions aim at generating a range of alternatives (regarding the lists of requirements, the stakeholders involved, the types of partnerships), providing a methodological framework particularly adapted to changing environments.
This point is critical to foster service resilience and sustainability, as service providers will have to deal with constant evolutions of both the data field and the different usage fields. In this perspective, the co-design process builds-up a series of interactions designed to progressively shape and consolidate ‘building blocks’ of the long-term development of the service’s strategy, intertwined with the evolution of both data and usage fields.
The DestinE co-design methodology supports a ‘resilient-fit’ perspective, which focuses on building a rich portfolio of resilient actions with different potential users. It maximizes the likelihood of achieving concrete and valuable outcomes.
From the perspective of service development
Defining the scope of Usefulness
Defining the scope of usefulness requires identifying consistent potential users and the specific problems the services can help them adress. This typically requires close, repeated interactions with users.
Ensuring Operability
Ensuring Operability requires aligning the service design with the potential platform’s resources, data, and protocols, ensuring that services can run on it and/or be built upon it.
Fostering Usability
Fostering services usability requires clarifying the processes and tools impacted by the service, to ensure that the service will be usable and adopted by users. This involves a fine-grained understanding of users’ operations and workflows.
Promoting Sustainability
Promoting sustainability requires involving users as long-term partners, potentially through contractual relationships, and ensuring that services remain viable, updated, and accessible over time, taking into account technical, intellectual property, and cost considerations.
Supporting Scalability
Supporting service scalability requires providing options for use in different contexts, with various stakeholders, and even for alternative purposes. This typically involves assessing the degree of genericity of the need to be addressed, eventually by engaging with others potential users.
A co-design toolkit tailored for DestinE
The co-design journey can be broken down into four essential phases, each crucial for ensuring the successful collaboration.
How to use our co-design toolkit ?
To effectively address the unique challenges that arise in each phase, the toolkit provides a comprehensive set of tools, methods, and best practices. For more in-depth information on the specific tools, templates, and methodologies that support this process, please refer to page dedicated to each phase (forthcoming).
CRITICAL INSIGHT
It may be tempting to assume that the co-design sessions are the only essential part of the co-design journey; however, this is a misconception that can lead to major mistakes, ultimately undermining the entire co-design process. In fact, all phases are equally vital, with particular emphasis on the diagnosis and outcome stages, which are crucial for ensuring a comprehensive and successful design approach.
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