Finding a Co-Designer

Who can be a co-designer?

A co-designer is a member of the community with a disability or diagnosis that presents a challenge to daily living, who is willing and able to work with the rest of the team to design a product to address one of these challenges. Co-designers may also be family members, caretakers, or teachers of people with disabilities, with related challenges.

While co-designers might encompass a person and their parents/family/caretaker/teacher, they should not be an abstract class of people. You might design for "Tony, who has mobility difficulties from cerebral palsy, and wants a better way to use an umbrella," or "Tony and his sister, who want an easier way to help lift Tony into the car," but you should not be designing for "people with mobility issues" at large.

Co-designers should be geographically co-located with teams whenever possible to enable in-person testing. We specifically and strongly discourage working on physical products with co-designers who students cannot test with in person. Software products may be an exception, but it is still strongly preferable to be able to test in person with your co-designer.

If you need to find a co-designer

One of the best approaches to finding a co-designer is through personal connections: think about and ask some of your close personal connections, like family, friends, or teachers, to think about any individuals they have known past or present who had a disability or impairment. Pay specific attention to people who had some condition that might be considered a disability even if have never seen or heard about that person struggling to accomplish an activity. For example, elderly neighbors or relatives may or may not have conditions that are considered disabilities, but may nonetheless find some assistive technologies helpful for some activities in their day-to-day lives.

You might also look for businesses that might serve people with disabilities in your geographic area. Hospitals, physical therapists, wheelchair stores, occupational therapists, private special educators, schools, disability lawyers, ... bonus points if you think of a business that is not listed!

Finally, try to find out what resources might exist that are provided by your city, state, non-profits, or advocacy groups near you. For instance, Massachusetts has a government organization called the "Massachusetts Commission for the Blind" who is charged with ensuring anyone identified by a doctor as legally blind is told about the resources that are available. Get creative. 

If you are in this brainstorming process, it can be helpful to think about a few different possibilities before deciding on who to reach out to, since the first person you reach out to may or may not be able to help. Also, consider whether there are logistical advantages or challenges to working with particular people - the more easily your team can get time to work with your co-designer, the better!

Beaver Works does not generally have the capacity to match co-designers to teams. We are working on a potential capability to do such matching in specific locations, and will provide an update if it becomes available.

Once you have found a co-designer, head to the next section on Co-Designer Interviews to learn about how to prepare for and conduct an interview.