Understanding Power Differentials and Cultural Differences in Co-design with Marginalized Populations

Co-design collects insights from multiple stakeholders collaboratively making it a powerful method to design with marginalized populations. In the latter context, stakeholders have varying levels of power causing asymmetry and possible suppression of one group over another. Such power differentials can hinder co-design’s effectiveness. Through thirteen semi-structured interviews with co-design facilitators who have worked with marginalized communities in 43 different countries, we discovered that despite efforts to mitigate power differentials, significant disparities in educational and cultural backgrounds, language barriers, and gender imbalances prevent true collaboration. Tools for prototyping, analysis and evaluation often require literacy, advanced training, and resources. When these are inaccessible, co-design fails to materialize in the design analysis, implementation, and evaluation phases. We found this failure occurred with marginalized groups. We also found that experienced facilitators were aware of their own privilege as well as the power differentials of outside stakeholders such as donors, and they prioritized strategies to address them ahead of time.