Malloy 11 user/consumer/student remains constant: both parties are recognized as contributors. The diversity of ideas of what co-creation is, what benefits it offers, and how one can apply it is interesting because it shows a breadth of purpose. However, this also allows for confusion among outsiders. If everyone claims the same term for different tasks, the term begins to lose meaning. Sanders develops and applies co-creativity in her research methods, creating toolkits for users to create with, which then informs the professional design process. Co-Design, the term Sanders and Stappers use in their article, "Co-Creation and the New Landscape of Design," can take place at any phase of the design process, from early ideation to the final product; Sanders’ focus is on the early phase of research. 14 For example, Sanders provides nurses with tools to create a dollhouse of an ideal patient room; another example is how Sanders provided diabetics with different tools to express what they would make to ease their struggles with a chronic illness. The benefits are insights into other’s needs and wants and a user sense of accomplishment and ownership through the process. The tools, for example, a collection of shapes that Velcro to one another, are ambiguous, open-ended. Users imagine solutions using prompts and tools. Co-Design is a solution with higher aims than simply pleasing the user; it adds functional and meaningful value through addressing needs of users by recognizing them as experts in their lives. The role of the user can occur at four levels: 1. Doing, motivated by productivity 2. Adapting, motivated by appropriation 3. Making, motivated by asserting ability or skill 4. Creating, motivated by inspiration.15 As you can see, motivations of users are key to the level of involvement they have. For Sanders, co-creation is a method of designing tools so users can create; the result, she would argue is to create more purposeful, effective, and even 14
Sanders, Stappers, "Co-Creation and the New Landscape of Design," 107-9.
15
Ibid., 10.