An observation of a service or service user’s experience.
At what stage of the design process is the tool most useful?
What does it do?
Shadowing helps the co-design team to gather in- depth information about the service or service user’s experience. It helps members understand the context within which they are designing and begin to spot patterns and design opportunities.
How do you use it?
Consider the problem you are looking to design solutions for:
- What do you need to understand?
- Do you need to understand the problem from different perspectives?
Arrange to observe the service from these different perspectives.
Encourage members of the co-design team to observe different elements of the service.
While they are observing the service, encourage members to take notes, take photographs or film what they see.
Useful resources when using the tool
It is helpful to record the session using a video camera or an audio recorder so that you can revisit the research in the future.