Journal article on design facilitation styles
A new article on how design facilitators practice was published in the CoDesign journal. Drs. Wenqi Zheng, Mauricio Mejía, and Danah Henriksen are the co-authors of this publication. After reviewing 35 case studies on design workshops from the past two years, we found a clear pattern around the facilitation styles that determine how teams and users collaborate:
- Directing: steering the ship, but sometimes drowning out voices.
- Collaborating: true co-creation, high trust.
- Suggesting: guiding the flow, letting ideas emerge.
Across the case studies, ‘directing’ appeared most frequently, but our research shows “collaborating” and “suggesting” unlock more creativity and participant trust.
Directing, collaborating or suggesting: a literature review on co-design facilitation.
Abstract: With an expanding body of literature on design facilitation exploring various approaches across diverse contexts, this article provides a comprehensive review, mapping out how designers engage in this role. The aim was to select case studies from the literature to understand the approaches and implications of design facilitation. In the data analysis, three primary facilitation styles emerged: directing, collaborating, and suggesting. These styles reflect distinct design facilitation approaches, each with implications for the power of facilitators, the agency of stakeholders, and the creative contributions of participants. The popularity of directing in design facilitation suggests that facilitators tend to be practical and may not share their power as effectively as they intend. Notably, the case studies in the literature are largely from academic work, with a noticeable absence of industry cases. This shows the urgent need for research on design facilitation in professional design practices and settings.
