Preparing Future Designers for their Role in Co‐Design: Student Insights on Learning Co‐Design

Abstract The state‐of‐the‐art literature indicates an increasing need for co‐design education as it is imperative to equip future designers with the co‐designing mindset. This derives from the significance of involving ‘people with lived experience’ in co‐design processes to better meet their needs. However, the traditional design education system seems to include mostly individual designing skills, causing a lack of skills in design students to facilitate the active participation of people in co‐design. This paper reports on a case study carried out in a third‐year Bachelor industrial design engineering course with design students ( n = 32) and design educators ( n = 4) to find an effective and efficient way of preparing future designers for their role in co‐design and to gain insights into design students' experience with learning about co‐design. As an instructional method, a co‐design workshop including the game‐play, game‐modding and game‐design approaches is introduced. The obstacles and confusion of the design students regarding co‐design and co‐design education, which they have documented throughout the year on their personalised logbooks, are explained to eliminate them in the future for smoother incorporation of co‐design education into design education curricula. Lastly, for future designers' mindfulness of co‐design and their role as facilitators suggestions are provided such as accreditation of curriculum activities regarding co‐design education.