Designing With, Not For: Participatory Techniques in Action
NOV 21st 9:00AM PST; 12:00PM EST; 17:00PM GMT (London); 18:00PM CET 22:30 PM IST
60 minutes
- Non-member: $99
- Open Circle: FREE (Get it FREE>> Join Open Circle)
- Inner Circle: Included in your $99 a month Inner Circle membership (50% discount available) for all events plus Digital Library 250+ videos, mentoring, hands-on workshops and more…
Masterclass-Designing With, Not For: Participatory Techniques in Action
If you hold power (like designers and devs) you can make mistakes. This shows up as assumption, bias or being exposed to unintended consequences. Power can limit our perspective.
Designers hold a subtle kind of power: every screen, journey map, or AI prompt embeds assumptions about who matters and who doesn’t. When left unchecked, those assumptions harden into bias, oversight, or harm.
Traditional UX has give us extractive approaches to dealing with our problem children: users.
UX research focuses on capturing, engaging, or gathering from users rather than working with them. This mindset produces distance: researchers extract; users stay disconnected from decisions- they are made behind the curtain.
Yes, this is the norm and we’re moving too fast to get relational with users. But in the age of AI, that gap is no longer safe. Systems learn from our choices, and when those choices are made in isolation, they scale our blind spots faster than ever.
Enter: Participatory Methods for Research, Design and Co-Production
Designing with, not for, means shifting from extraction to relationship. It asks us to share power across time, not just collect feedback once. It means creating safe spaces for lived experience, co-analyzing findings, and co-deciding directions. It involves learning with users, not over them—and bringing our organizations along so the learning becomes collective. In practice, that looks like multi-session collaboration, consent-based decisions, and participatory AI approaches where communities shape how systems behave. This is relational, trauma-informed design. It’s more deliberate about ‘quick’. It’s inclusive and accountable, but it’s also about releasing our power, and thereby making better design decisions. Participatory approaches are the kind of UX the AI era demands.
In this Masterclass, Frank will immerse you in the latest in a range of practiacal ways to weave in participatory methods for your UX and Service Design process. This includes codesign and coproduction. Join Frank as he shares field-tested methods and learn why it took him so many years to adopt these methods.
Agenda: Designing With, Not For: Participatory Techniques in Action
1) What’s absent in UX Research, Design and Delivery? Beyond Empathy toward Lived Experience
2) Co-production over consultation. Share power from discovery to delivery.
3) Participatory mindset shifts: Bringing your organization along
4) Participatory AI: Building safety, inclusion and ethics into AI projects
5) Q&A
About Monthly MasterClasses:
These monthly meet-ups are topic-driven live events with an informal presentation by Frank Spillers and group activities and discussions. Monthly MasterClasses are included as part of your membership. They allow a deep dive into important UX topics, with insights drawn from process best practices and case studies from Frank’s 25 years in the field.
How to access this masterclass…
- Open Circle: FREE (Get it FREE>> Join Open Circle)
- Inner Circle: Included in your $99 a month Inner Circle membership (50% discount available) for all events plus Digital Library 250+ videos, mentoring, hands-on workshops and more…
| Date: | 21 Nov 2025 |
|---|---|
| Time: | 09:00 am PST 12:00 pm EST 05:00 pm GMT 06:00 pm CET |
| Check Your Timezone | |
Who You will Learn From
Frank Spillers
Founder - UX Inner Circle
Frank Spillers, MS, founded the UX Inner Circle in 2020 to support senior practitioners facing complex challenges. The community exists to sharpen thinking, increase your confidence, and pressure-test real decisions. It’s built for people doing the work, not just talking about it. Frank founded an award-winning UX and Service Design consultancy (Experience Dynamics) and now leads UX and Service Design at numerous organisations, including the UK Government Digital Service. He has worked with and led teams to deliver hundreds of products and services over several decades. His work spans government, enterprise platforms, nonprofits, and global brands. He brings 25+ years as a senior UX and Service Design leader. His focus areas include Inclusive Design, accessibility, emotion-led design, cross-cultural UX, VR/AR, and UX leadership. His work has directly increased conversion by 88% and revenue by 300% for organizations including Nike, Microsoft, Intel, Capital One, Global Disability Rights Now!, the World Bank, and the City of New York.
