Abstract
This paper addresses gaps in ethical guidance for socially oriented designers engaged in co-design with marginalised groups. It introduces an ethical canvas for planning and evaluating co-design, developed through a collaborative inquiry led by a practitioner-researcher with long experience in community-based design. The canvas was informed by the authoring team’s expertise in service design, ethical decision-making, and socially engaged design research. It makes ethical deliberation visible and actionable, especially where multiple or conflicting values are present. The canvas invites designers to reflect on their stance, engage with participants’ lived realities, and navigate tensions between institutional expectations and situated needs. It supports the recognition of values such as autonomy, empowerment, social responsibility and social change, often implicit in practice. Ethics is approached as relational and evolving, shaped through dialogue and shared experience, across all levels of society. This contribution strengthens ethical decision-making and offers a practical tool for value-sensitive reflection.
Keywords
social co-design, ethical decision-making, ethical canvas, marginalised groups
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.695
Citation
Lydén, H., Juujärvi, S., and Miettinen, S. (2026) Designing with care: proposing an ethical canvas for co-design with marginalised groups, in Simeone, L., Gray, C. M., Verhoeven, A., de Götzen, A., Bakırlıoğlu, Y., Zohar, H., Stead, M., and Buwert, P. (eds.), DRS2026: Edinburgh, 8–12 June, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.695
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Designing with care: proposing an ethical canvas for co-design with marginalised groups
This paper addresses gaps in ethical guidance for socially oriented designers engaged in co-design with marginalised groups. It introduces an ethical canvas for planning and evaluating co-design, developed through a collaborative inquiry led by a practitioner-researcher with long experience in community-based design. The canvas was informed by the authoring team’s expertise in service design, ethical decision-making, and socially engaged design research. It makes ethical deliberation visible and actionable, especially where multiple or conflicting values are present. The canvas invites designers to reflect on their stance, engage with participants’ lived realities, and navigate tensions between institutional expectations and situated needs. It supports the recognition of values such as autonomy, empowerment, social responsibility and social change, often implicit in practice. Ethics is approached as relational and evolving, shaped through dialogue and shared experience, across all levels of society. This contribution strengthens ethical decision-making and offers a practical tool for value-sensitive reflection.