UX
Co-design Workshops
A practical UX method for bringing users, stakeholders, and teams together to shape ideas collaboratively and align early around direction.
How to use co-design workshops to generate stronger ideas, align teams and stakeholders, and create shared direction from the start.
What it is
Co-design workshops are a UX method where users, glossaryStakeholderA stakeholder is any individual or group with an interest in a product, project, or outcome, including internal teams and external parties.Open glossary term, and teams collaborate to generate ideas, explore solutions, and shape experiences together.
Instead of designing in isolation, co-design brings different perspectives into the glossaryProcessA process is a defined sequence of steps used to achieve a specific outcome.Open glossary term, combining user glossaryInsightAn insight is a meaningful understanding that explains why something is happening and what it means.Open glossary term with business and technical knowledge.
Workshops typically involve structured activities such as sketching, glossaryPrioritisationPrioritisation is the process of ranking tasks, features, or initiatives based on their importance, impact, and effort.Open glossary term, and problem-solving exercises.
The focus is not on polished outputs, but on shared understanding and direction.
The goal is to create better solutions through collaboration and ensure glossaryAlignmentAlignment is a shared understanding of goals and priorities across teams and stakeholders, strong enough that people act consistently without checking first. It is not the same thing as everyone agreeing.Open glossary term from the start.
Co-design workshops are most useful when better outcomes depend on combining user perspective with team expertise early in the process.
When to use it
Use this method when collaboration adds value.
It is most useful when:
It is less useful when:
Co-design workshops are often used in discovery and early design stages.
Key takeaway
Use co-design workshops when progress depends on shared understanding, diverse input, and faster alignment around where to go next.
How to run it
Set up properly
Be clear on the problem, who should be in the room, and what participants can actually influence. Inviting people to co-design something already decided is worse than not inviting them.
Prepare materials that let non-designers contribute. Asking people to sketch without support produces silence and apologies.
Run the method
Co-design workshops make users active participants in designing rather than subjects to be researched. The commitment is real: you have to be willing to use what emerges.
- Set the glossaryContextContext is the set of surrounding conditions that shape how someone behaves and decides, including their goal, their environment, their time pressure, and what happened immediately before. The same action can mean different things in different contexts.Open glossary term and goals honestly, including what is fixed and what is genuinely open.
- Introduce the problem clearly, in the participants' terms rather than in project language.
- Run collaborative activities (sketching, ideation, arranging) designed so that people who do not design can take part.
- Encourage participation from everybody, and watch for professionals dominating over users.
- Capture ideas and the reasoning behind them, since the reasoning outlives the specific idea.
Be honest about glossaryConstraintsConstraints are limitations or restrictions that impact how a product or solution can be designed or built.Open glossary term at the start. Discovering the boundaries by having ideas rejected is what makes people disengage from co-design.
Capture and make sense of it
The value comes from designing with people rather than for them. After the workshop, document:
- Ideas generated, with the reasoning behind each
- Problems participants raised that were not on your list
- Where participants disagreed with the team's framing
- What you committed to doing with the output
Use this where the people affected have knowledge you do not. It works especially well in glossaryServiceA service is a component or function that performs a specific task within a system.Open glossary term and in serviceAccessibilityFind accessibility issues early, improve usability, and build products that are more inclusive, usable, and compliant.Open service work.
What to look for
Focus on:
Where it goes wrong
Most issues come from:
If it’s not structured, it won’t deliver value.
What you get from it
Done properly, this method gives you:
Key takeaway
It helps you design better solutions, together.
Get in touch
If this sounds like something you need, we can help you run co-design workshops that bring the right people together and drive meaningful outcomes.
No guesswork. No assumptions. Just collaboration that works.
FAQ
Common questions
A few practical answers to the questions that usually come up around this method.
What are co-design workshops in UX?
They are collaborative sessions where users and teams design solutions together.
When should you use co-design workshops?
Use them when exploring ideas or aligning teams.
Who should be involved?
Users, stakeholders, designers, and relevant team members.
What do you get from a co-design workshop?
Ideas that carry the people who will live with them. The output is usually a set of concepts plus something more useful: a shared understanding of the constraints, and stakeholders who have argued the trade-offs out loud rather than after launch.
Do co-design workshops improve UX?
Yes. They bring in real perspectives and improve outcomes.
Quick take
If you want better ideas and stronger alignment, design with people, not just for them.
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