Advancing Asset-Based Practice: Engagement, Ownership, and Outcomes in Participatory Design

Abstract

This paper aims to understand how asset-based approaches can enhance how design researchers work with communities. Asset-based approaches support people to share perspectives of complex societal issues, recognize local strengths and capabilities, and apply these to inform action and change. Situated in the field of participatory design and drawing from a project investigating concepts of wellbeing with a volunteer community in the Scottish Highlands, the paper explores how an asset-based mindset can shape research methods, tools, and techniques. This establishes practices of appreciative exploration, collaborative articulation, and creative activation. Advancing a model of asset-based practice, it proposes how design researchers can enrich their engagement with contexts and communities, strengthen participants’ ownership over the process, and co-design outputs to communicate experiences and insights to multiple stakeholders and audiences.

Keywords:

• participatory design
• asset-based approaches
• communities
• engagement
• ownership
• outcomes
• mindset
• practice

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Highland Hospice for their support and the volunteers and staff for their participation in Curated Care. I also thank Professor Irene McAra-McWilliam and Professor Lynn-Sayers McHattie for their insight and guidance in Curated Care and the wider Flourish programme of work; Professor Janet McDonnell, Gemma Teal, and Madeline Smith for their advice on previous drafts; and the journal reviewers for their feedback and comments. Flourish was funded by the Scottish Universities Insight Institute (SUII). I gratefully acknowledge their support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Cara Broadley

Dr Cara Broadley is a Research Fellow at The Glasgow School of Art. Focusing on contexts of democracy, and equality, and wellbeing her research explores the role of visual and participatory design methods and asset-based approaches to engage with communities.