Many approaches use participatory methods:

However, the common idea is that better ideas are found when stakeholders and people affected by problems and solutions are part of the idea generation process and can contribute their perspectives.

This (as well as the identification of user needs in Step 2) helps to counter the "I-methodology": The "I-methodology" refers to a design approach in which developers unconsciously use their own experiences, preferences and assumptions as a template for user needs. This often results in products that reflect the perspectives of the creators rather than the diverse realities of actual people. Similarly, in research, the social position and experiences of researchers shape how they design their research, interpret their findings, make recommendations and develop solutions. But you cannot know what people need. You are not in their shoes!

Therefore, we strongly recommend that you involve stakeholders (e.g. users, people affected by your research, policy makers, advocacy organisations, think tanks) in your project, as this increases the likelihood that different perspectives will be included, which in turn increases the likelihood that your project outcome will be more inclusive and effective. By moving beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries, innovation processes are becoming more holistic, adaptive, and aligned with real-world needs.

You can use many methods (also in combination) such as:

• User diaries / Collective Notebook / Photovoice / User Day-Parting
• Customer / User Journey / Community Mapping
• Workshops & other group formats, such as Co-Creation Workshops, Stakeholder workshops, Design Thinking, Interactive Prototyping, focus groups
• Personas, Use Cases & Scenarios
• And many more …

Just read up on the different methods and choose the one that best suits your project. Some resources are already linked above with the methods, but there are also a number of resources below that can help you and provide more detailed instructions.

Don’t forget your inclusion perspective: We would like to stress that it is vital to ensure that your target groups are well represented in these formats, otherwise it will not result in more inclusive solution ideas. Please don't hesitate to take an existing method and add your intersectional thinking to it as needs might vary also with intersections – especially when it comes to analysing and interpreting the results. It is important not to reinforce existing stereotypes in the methods used, for example in personas, use cases and scenarios (e.g. a woman who likes everything pink and is unable to do basic handicrafts). It can help here to base personas on real data or use gender swapping.

It can be helpful to plan an iterative participative development process, thus including more than one round of feedback gathering. For example, you start with a co-creation workshop, then you go into development, then you test the prototype with a user diary, then you refine the prototype and do a user test with a thinking aloud methodology. However, you can read more about testing in Step 4.

Make sure to:

• Plan enough time to coordinate a number of people (sometimes from different contexts), synchronising their goals and timelines.
• Plan enough resources, as implementing an inclusive design process can require significant resources and coordination given the diverse and sometimes conflicting needs of various user groups.
• Consider personalised versions: Sometimes, a single outcome might not cover all needs. In this case, you could consider developing different feature scenarios, e.g. adaptable interface elements.

Here you find tools, resources and field specific information for your support

Tools & resources

• There is an article on Co-Creation & Participatory Research on the Gendered Innovation website.
• The RESET project offers a Co-Design Starter Kit.
• The Hyper Island Toolbox provides tools for innovation processes and ideation.
• The GILL Hub is a collaborative platform and community that provides tools, methods, services, and resources to support gender-responsive smart innovation and entrepreneurship.
• There is a useful handbook on Design Practices and stakeholder involvement: “Nothing about Us without Us”.
• The Swedish funding agency Vinnova offers the NOVA toolkit on Tools and methods for norm-creative innovations with various participatory methods and tools.
• The Gender STI project published a methodological handbook on their Co-Design Labs.
• Gamestorming provides co-creation tools for innovators.

Field specific Information:

For Information, Communication and Technology (ICT)

• Watch the webinar from the ‘Gender equality in information science and technology’ (EQUAL-IST) project to learn why you should include a gender (and intersectional) approach in your research project, and how to do so. There is also a section on inclusive methods for UX design.
• Watch this workshop from the GiLL project on the Gendered design of ICT Tools.

For Engineering, Architecture and City-Planning

• UN Habitat provides a guide for Cities to Sustainable and Inclusive Urban Planning; including practical support material.

When developing a product, service, or research outcome, you’ll face many big and small decisions – like what ideas to follow, what features to include, and how it should look.

It’s important to keep your main goal in mind: creating something inclusive. To do this, always consider the needs and experiences of your target groups.

You can support inclusion by considering the needs and experiences of the target groups, by:

• Using the results from your earlier analysis
• Testing and improving your ideas in cycles
• Making decisions openly and clearly
• Involving your team in shared decisions
• Including target group members in decision-making

Be aware: sometimes the needs expressed by a group may reflect existing gender roles. For example, women often do more care work. Their needs must be taken seriously. But the goal should also be to break the link between gender and care roles – for example, by also supporting men and non-binary people who want to take on caring responsibilities.

Inclusive solutions should reflect both the current reality and the changes we want to see in the future.

Here you can find some external support to facilitate inclusive decision-making:

Tools & Resources:

• The University of British Columbia provides a tool for Intentional Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Decision-Making
• This is a publication, in which an inclusive research team reflects on shared decision-making
• Methods and guidelines for inclusive online meetings, which could be used for shared decision-making processes within the project team .
• The Hyper Island Toolbox provides tools for innovation processes and ideation.

In the FairCom project, the team used participatory methods to involve target groups. First, they created personas and scenarios based on interviews, observations, and a survey. These were used in online co-creation workshops, where participants shared ideas for more inclusive online meetings.

After the workshops, the team had to choose which ideas to develop. They focused on the project’s main goal: inclusion. They scored each idea based on how well it supported that goal. This took time and teamwork.

In later decisions, they used the personas again to ask: What would each person need? Are we missing anything important?

In the end, they developed two things:

1. A plug-in for online meetings with several features (e.g. tracking speaking time)
2. A set of methods and guidelines for moderators to help make meetings more inclusive