The Inclusive Innovation Playbook

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Diverse Participation

Why diverse participation matters

Diverse participation is essential for achieving inclusive innovation because it brings together individuals with different backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences with greater collective insights. However involving diverse people is not enough. You also need to create the right environment where people feel comfortable, and use participatory techniques to enable everyone to contribute.

This combination of diversity and inclusion can lead to a more comprehensive understanding of the needs and preferences of different communities, as well as the identification of new and innovative solutions.

One of the biggest mistakes product and design teams make, is assuming they know what their audiences need, based on their own experiences.

People often think that empathy is about putting themselves in someone else's shoes. However, empathy is not about you at all! If you put yourself in someone else’s shoes, you may well identify what you might need or do in their situation. However, this could still be very different to what they need.

As innovators, we are on a quest to solve problems. However most of the time we are not accounting for the fact that people experience problems in different ways.

For example, the ‘black’ experience of homelessness is not the same as the ‘white’ experience. The ‘female’ experience of being in debt is not the same as the ‘male’ experience. This is because our intersectional identities influence our own perceptions, how we are treated and the opportunities that we are afforded.

When a diverse range of individuals are involved in the innovation process, it can help to address existing biases and inequalities that may exist in society. For example, if a product is designed by a team of individuals from a single demographic group, it may not take into account the needs and preferences of other groups, leading to exclusion and inequality.

Bringing in diverse perspectives

To achieve truly inclusive innovation, it is important to ensure that diverse individuals and communities are actively involved in the innovation process, from ideation to implementation.

It is important to seek diversity both within your internal teams and those external to your company who may be involved in your innovation practices. This means diversifying:

Leaders and teams.

Collaboration partners.

User feedback groups and research targets.

It's important to take a collaborative and participatory approach to ensure that the product or service meets the unique needs, preferences, and pain points of a diverse audience. This means intentionally engaging people of different ages, genders, backgrounds, ethnicities, abilities, and more, from within your organisation, customer base, and beyond.

Diversify the team

Diversifying teams is crucial for inclusive innovation. A diverse team brings different perspectives and experiences.

This includes embedding inclusive recruitment practices and hiring individuals from underrepresented groups and backgrounds, such as women, people of colour, people with disabilities, older adults, and non-binary individuals.

Actively seek diversity of thought to create a more innovative and productive workplace culture that taps into the collective wisdom of many.

Randy Pagulayan, senior director of research at Xbox, looks for each team member’s unique “superpower”. That might include anything from being a fast learner to growing up in a vastly different environment that enables them to see the world through a different lens.

Inclusive Hiring

Inclusive hiring practices are essential to diversify your team. This includes adopting practices such as:

Using inclusive language in job adverts. Tools like the

Gender Decoder⁠

can help.

Using diverse recruitment channels, beyond personal networks, to attract a wider range of candidates.

Lululemon found that by insisting on diversity in interview candidates, and hiring the best candidate for the job they increased the diversity of new hires, without having to set hiring quotas. This approach recognises that no one wants to be a ‘diversity hire’ but that intentional effort is needed to diversify the talent pipeline.

Consider how each candidate can contribute to your organisational culture, valuing diverse perspectives. Look for culture ‘add’, not just culture ‘fit’. Hire for the company not just the role, look at values and strengths.

Standardise the selection process with practices like blind CV screening, competency-based interviews, and diverse interview panels.

Establish a clear strategy and policy for remote, hybrid, or work-from-home arrangements, considering flexibility for caregivers. Prioritise offering flexible working options to accommodate diverse needs and enhance inclusivity. Offer remote interviews for people who do not have the resources to travel to multiple interviews or have caring responsibilities.

Be open to different routes to a role, look into vocational as well as educational. Don’t put items that are not really essential into a list of ‘essential requirements for candidates’ and reconsider what is really needed.

Be transparent and clear about the process and give questions in advance. Ask people what else they might need in order to be at their best during the process.

Diversify partners

To achieve diverse participation, you’ll need to carefully consider your engagement approach and whether to build partnerships with organisations that are closer to users' needs. It's also crucial to carefully consider how to reward and recognise participants for the value they bring.

It is not always possible or practical to ensure that the sample of participants reflects the full range of users who may use your product or service. You may need to take a targeted approach.

Celebrate diversity

Showcase the diversity within your teams, customers and community.

Build relationships that bridge gaps in understanding and create opportunities for genuine dialogue and collaboration.

By recognising and embracing differences, we can create a more equitable and inclusive world where everyone feels valued and included.

The innovation lifecycle

Trying to embed inclusion as an afterthought is much harder than building it in from the start. To truly embrace the philosophy of co-design you should involve diverse participants at each stage of the innovation lifecycle. In fact, the earlier the better.

Strategy and investment: To test high level viability and potential impact of future offerings with a diverse audience.

Research and discovery: To validate ideas and test assumptions with a diverse audience.

Design and build: To test that the developed product or service meets diverse user needs.

Test & launch: To validate that your marketing messaging does not leave anyone in your target market feeling left out.

Iterate and scale: To understand impact and continue to seek diverse inputs to determine ongoing product or service improvements.

To take a co-design approach, participants are not just asked for feedback periodically but they co-own the process. It’s about designing with, not for.

The

Inclusive Research⁠

page gives top tips for embedding inclusion into your research practices.

Participant engagement

Consider how to involve diverse inputs into your innovation processes. Look to embed as recurring standard practice, rather than one off activities. Consider both internal and external participants throughout the innovation lifecycle. Determine what groups, structures and practices you’ll put in place in order to draw insights from:

Core product, design and development teams.

Wider internal teams, committees & steering boards.

Market research & focus groups.

Customer and user testing panels.

Experts and partners.

Community groups.

Create feedback and iteration loops

Don’t see research with diverse participants as a one off task but rather an iterative processs. Encourage participants to provide ongoing feedback throughout the research and development process.

Regularly check in with them to understand their experience, gather suggestions for improvements, and incorporate their feedback into subsequent research activities. This iterative approach demonstrates that their input is valued and actively considered, fostering a sense of ownership and investment in the process.

Participation Levels

Create different participation levels. This gives participants engagement options to suit them, but also ensures you have sufficient involvement at all stages. For example some may only be interested in completing a short survey, others might want to participant in periodic workshops while others may want to take a more active role helping to define what research questions are being asked or being a part of how findings are analysed and interpreted.

Boosting negative signals

Because your marginalised users necessarily represent a smaller share of your total user base, you need to amplify their signals — especially when they’re negative.

Michael Linares, Product Director at Crisis Text Line

This mean intentional effort needs to be put into seeking out insights, perspectives and feedback from minority voices.

Explicitly review insights across your organisation to gain a deeper understanding of any trends affecting people from protected segments. This might include:

Customer support tickets

Social media

Informal feedback

Feature requests

Bug reports

Emails

Staff feedback

Guiding principles for soliciting input from diverse perspectives

Irrespective of the stage and the technique used to engage your stakeholders, the following are guiding principles to ensure you leverage diversity and foster inclusion when engaging people to contribute to your innovation practices.

Value diverse inputs. Recognise that individuals and communities are experts in their own experiences and can contribute to the creating of inclusive products and services in meaningful ways. Even if you don’t agree, respect the opinion of others.

Actively seek out diverse perspectives and experiences and involve individuals and communities who have been historically excluded or marginalised. Seek out external partners who have expertise and perspectives that are different from those within your organisation. Carefully consider which minority groups to involve and avoid categorising people in reductive ways.

Don’t make assumptions about people’s experiences. Invite people to share their experiences and to explore what factors may have influenced this. Review feedback from multiple participants to spot any trends or patterns that emerge about the experience of people from different groups. Don’t go into the process thinking you already know the answers.

Recognise and address power imbalances, and ensuring all participants feel comfortable and valued during their interactions with you. Consider who may lack power due to structural inequalities. Pay particular attention to supporting them and understanding their perspectives.

Create conditions to received honest feedback. Take a collaborative and participatory approach by encouraging open communication. Ensure your processes are respectful and safe and intentional effort is put into building trust, creating rapport and creating an inclusive environment for everyone to participate. Participants need to feel able to be vulnerable and talk honestly about challenges they may face.

Manage expectations. Be transparent about your process and clear about what you are looking for and why. In order to build trust with your participants it is important that they understand how their feedback will be used and what action or changes are likely. Making firm commitments about your roadmap that don’t materialise will cause more harm than good. Sharing iterative designs that incorporate their feedback will help to built trust.

Show empathy & respect people’s time. What may seem like a small request or task, could be a significant burden for someone from a marginalised community due to various forms of oppression or challenges that they may experience in their daily life. It's important to be mindful and empathetic towards their unique challenges and circumstances.

Make it fun and engaging. User research can often be seen as a tedious or time-consuming activity. To encourage active participation and generate valuable insights, it's crucial to make the research process enjoyable and engaging for participants. This can be achieved through various methods such as story telling, gamification, interactive activities, or incorporating elements of surprise. By creating a positive and fun environment, participants are more likely to be actively involved and provide candid feedback.

Meet people where they are. User research should be conducted in a manner that suits the participants' preferences, capabilities, and limitations. This principle emphasises the importance of accommodating different communication styles, cultural backgrounds, accessibility needs, and technological literacy levels. Conducting research in participants' preferred locations, using their preferred communication channels, or providing flexible scheduling options can help create a comfortable and inclusive environment for everyone involved. If you aren’t sure, ask participants how best you can support them.

Use inclusive language: Use language that is inclusive and sensitive to diverse identities and experiences to foster a safe and welcoming environment for participants to share their insights.

Take culturally competent approach: Be aware of cultural nuances and practices to avoid unintentional bias and to build trust with participants from different cultural backgrounds. Use culturally sensitive language and materials.

Consider accessibility: Provide multiple modes of participation, such as in-person and virtual options, and offer accommodations like captioning and translation services to make thhe process accessible to all. Ask participants what accommodations they mights need in order to participate effectively.

Provide context and education. Participants may not be familiar with the purpose, methods, or terminology used in your research. Educating participants about the research process, your objectives, explaining the reasoning behind specific questions or tasks, and sharing relevant background information can break down barriers, enhance their engagement and enable them to provide more informed feedback. Providing training before you ask for feedback can ensure participants also gain value from the experience.

Review the

Countering Bias⁠

page in the playbook to help prompt your thinking about how to avoid bias when engaging with participants for user research.

Participatory techniques

There are a number of well established techniques and approaches that recognise the value of diverse perspectives and experiences, and emphasise collaboration and participation in creating effective and sustainable solutions. The principles shared above can be applied to all of these techniques to create more equitable outcomes and create better solutions.

Participatory design methods

Co-creation is a powerful process that requires a meaningful shift in power from experts to the impacted parties.

Human-Centered Design (HCD): is an innovative problem-solving approach and a design framework that places the needs, preferences, and experiences of the end-users at the forefront of the design process. It is a user-centric and empathetic approach to design that aims to create products, services, or systems that are not only functional and efficient but also highly intuitive, enjoyable, and relevant to the people who will use them.

Learn more: The

Design Kit from IDEO⁠

provides a fantastic selection of methods, mindset and case studies for human centred design.

Co-design: Jointly developing new ideas, products or solutions by bringing together individuals with diverse backgrounds and expertise and recognising that they are the experts in their own experiences and needs. It emphasises the active participation and collaboration of all stakeholders, throughout the lifecycle, and involves working collaboratively to create solutions that meet their specific needs and preferences.

Learn more: Beyond Sticky Notes provides an excellent

overview of co-design⁠

Design thinking: A human-centered approach to problem-solving that involves empathy, collaboration, and experimentation. It involves understanding the needs and perspectives of end-users and stakeholders, ideating and prototyping solutions, and testing and iterating to develop effective solutions.

Learn more: There are several models for Design Thinking, including those produced by

IDEO⁠

Stanford⁠

IBM⁠

and the

UK Design Council⁠

Participatory research methods

Participatory research: Participatory research is an inclusive research approach that actively engages the individuals or communities being studied as co-researchers. It can involve partners, users or other stakeholders. It emphasises their involvement in all stages of the research process, from defining research questions to data collection, analysis, and interpretation. This approach recognises the expertise of the participants and aims to foster collaboration, equity, and empowerment. The goal is to generate knowledge that is not only academically rigorous but also relevant and actionable within the community or group involved.

Inclusive inquiry: A process of actively engaging and including individuals and groups who have been historically excluded or marginalised in research and insight gathering to support decision-making. The goal is to make sure that every voice is heard and every perspective is valued. It's about breaking down barriers and creating a level playing field for everyone to contribute.

Appreciative inquiry: A collaborative and participatory approach to change. It involves focusing on the strengths and positive aspects of an organisation or community, rather than on problems or deficiencies, and using this positive energy to identify and develop innovative solutions.

Participatory action research (PAR): A collaborative and participatory approach to research that involves engaging with individuals and communities in the research process. It typically involved ‘non experts’ talking charge in order to drive social transformation. As such the ‘research’ and ‘action’ elements are intertwined.

Emancipatory Research: Emancipatory research is a research method driven by a commitment to social justice and the empowerment of marginalized or oppressed groups. It seeks to challenge and transform existing power structures, inequalities, and systemic injustices. Through critical analysis and advocacy, emancipatory research aims to give voice to those who are typically silenced and to dismantle the barriers that perpetuate inequality. The ultimate objective is to enable individuals and communities to gain greater control over their lives and to bring about positive social change.