Participatory design

Participatory design is a way of involving users in the design process through simple exercises. The goal is to better understand their needs and goals.

Your choice of exercise will depend on the exact nature of the information you are looking for from your users. Some examples of participatory design exercises include:

• Asking users to make visual empathy collages to map out their perceived connection and interaction with your product
• Asking users to visually draw out the hierarchy of their goals and needs
• Getting users to role-play and act out their problems and potential solutions
• Brainstorming and improving on ideas and solutions together in groups, etc.^[1]

These exercises can be shaped in the manner of your choosing. Just remember that the purpose is to elicit solutions and answers from users naturally to create more user-centric designs.