Co-designing the future in complex systems

The face-to-face co-design workshop has been the default mode for designers to collaborate with stakeholder groups to solve complex challenges. However, the disruption associated with COVID-19 led to practitioners exploring alternative modes of collaboration that opened an array of new possibilities. The aim of this paper is to present the case study of Reboot STEMM, a distributed co-design process that combined live and asynchronous modes of contribution, and explored how digital technologies could be used to scale-up co-design processes, while also prioritising accessibility, and promoting empowerment. The case demonstrates the success of using an augmented version of the Multi-Level Perspective as a facilitation tool for co-designing complex systems, and of using a digital platform as an ongoing and interactive record of project data alongside traditional reporting practices.