The co-design participatory power pyramid

This paper presents an innovative co-design participatory power pyramid, which foregrounds how people living with dementia (PLWD) are (and can be) involved in co-design projects. The pyramid provides a scale of participant involvement in co-design activities based on the premise that design is a process that encom-passes a series of interlinked activities, actions, and thinking that, when com-bined, result in a designed outcome. The co-design participatory power pyramid has been created to define and better understand the spectrum of co-design projects when working with PLWD. However, it is anticipated that the frame-work will be applicable to other co-design research practices. The pyramid makes explicit the differences between co-design projects labelled as ‘to’, ‘for’, ‘with’ and ‘by’. The paper provides rich examples to highlight how the framework is an appropriate tool as it encourages self-empowerment in collaboration and inde-pendence in action that are perceived to be aspirational in co-design activities.