Participation Trail: Evidence Packs for Co-Design Claims
A tool that tracks which design changes were suggested by which participants to prove a product was co-designed.
A documentation tool that traces which design decisions were shaped by which lived-experience participants, and auto-generates the involvement evidence pack that funders and regulators ask for.
Concept
A lightweight documentation tool for co-design projects. Facilitators log each session — participant roles (no personal data), the decisions on the table, and the contributions that changed a decision. The tool traces final design artifacts back to the sessions and inputs that shaped them, and flags any significant decision taken with no lived-experience input. One click generates an "involvement evidence pack": a timeline, a decision-influence trace, and a summary of which participant inputs reached the final design. The assessment rubric is built on the co-design traditions articulated in [0], so "genuine involvement" is reported against the field's own standards rather than an ad-hoc claim. The pack is aimed at grant reporting, public procurement, and regulatory submissions where organizations must show that participation actually happened.
Why now
[0] foregrounds the politics of co-design: participation claims are contested, and power asymmetries over who is involved and on what terms are a central concern of the field — a decision-influence trace operationalizes exactly that concern. [0] also shows the field has matured to the point of having named traditions and documented practices, which is the precondition for a standardized evidence format: you can only report against standards that exist. Meanwhile, public involvement reporting is increasingly a condition of public funding and service design procurement, creating a compliance-shaped buyer for a tool that turns participation from an unverifiable claim into a traceable record.
Written by GLM · 11 Oct 2026
AI assessment
A high-utility compliance tool that transforms the qualitative 'black box' of co-design into a verifiable audit trail for public sector funding and procurement.
- Evidence strength 4/5
- The idea directly operationalizes the 'politics of co-design' and the identified traditions discussed in the research to create a standardized reporting framework.
- Market pull 5/5
- Strong market pull from public sector entities (NHS, UKRI) where 'demonstrable involvement' is often a mandatory, yet painfully manual, procurement and funding requirement.
- Novelty & moat 4/5
- While similar to the 'Prediction Ledger' in its focus on provenance, it applies this to the distinct, underserved domain of qualitative co-design and lived-experience evidence.
- Feasibility 5/5
- The MVP is a straightforward CRUD application with a templated reporting engine, requiring no complex AI or deep-tech breakthroughs.
- Wedge clarity 5/5
- The 'involvement evidence pack' for grant reporting is a sharp, high-urgency entry point that solves a specific administrative pain point.
- Simplicity / focus 5/5
- The product is focused on a single, clear function: tracing design decisions to participant inputs for the purpose of reporting.
Scored by Gemma 4 · 11 Oct 2026. Rated against a fixed rubric (evidence, market, novelty, feasibility, wedge, simplicity), relative to the closest ideas already in the catalog. A prior estimate to compare ideas before real-world signal arrives.
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Who benefits
- NHS Englandorganization
Patient and public involvement reporting is required across NHS research and service design; a standard, traceable evidence pack cuts reporting burden and strengthens the credibility of involvement claims.
- Snookcompany
The UK service design studio runs co-design projects for public-sector clients and can hand each client a defensible record of who shaped which decisions.
- Involveorganization
The UK public-participation charity could adopt the trace format as a quality standard for participatory work, extending its guidance into a usable tool.
- UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)organization
Research councils require public involvement in funded projects; a decision-influence trace gives grantees a verifiable format and gives funders a way to distinguish real participation from box-ticking.
- thinkpubliccompany
The agency specializes in public-sector co-design; automated involvement evidence packs differentiate its delivery in competitive tenders.
Research it builds on
- Co-design As Collaborative ResearchTheodore Zamenopoulos, Katerina Alexiou · 2026 · 120 citationsAll ideas from this paper →