Before assuming we need to reinforce a particular message, it can be useful to understand how the people we're trying to reach see the issue themselves, and what might make a message meaningful to them.

Example: Design Council / Essex County Council - Place-Based Climate Action

Essex County Council was developing a Youth Climate Ambassador Network, but early research suggested climate action was not a strong priority for many students. Rather than starting with climate messaging, I designed and demonstrated a participatory research method that council officers could use with 15-18-year-olds and their teachers to explore what a positive future for Essex meant to them.

Through futures exercises, storytelling and systems thinking, we developed ten youth-led themes for climate action. The young people then voted on their top five. The work shifted the starting point from “How do we get young people interested in climate?” to “What matters to young people, and where does climate action fit within that?” - giving council officers a youth-led foundation for their future outreach and communications.

When an initiative aims to bring people together around a shared goal, it can be tempting to start by designing activities or interventions. But what if the local conditions needed for participation aren't yet fully understood?

Example: Design Council / London Borough of Hounslow - Place-Based Climate Action

Hounslow's Net Zero team wanted to foster a climate-positive community. An early idea was a parklet focused on air quality, transport and access to green space, but initial conversations brought to light the social and economic conditions shaping everyday life in the neighbourhood.

I supported the team to explore the idea through design research and systems thinking, combining a ward walk with desk research and stakeholder perspectives to understand local assets, barriers and everyday routines. This brought a more nuanced picture of the neighbourhood into view, including underused green space, low incomes, extensive working hours and high levels of crime. These findings highlighted how local conditions shaped people's opportunities to participate in community life.

This shifted the focus from developing a pre-determined intervention to exploring how the foundations for community participation could be co-developed in ways that also supported climate action.

Sometimes the most useful question isn't how to improve the established approach, but what it might be overlooking. Looking at a problem through a different lens can reveal possibilities that are difficult to see from within the usual frame.

Example: World Health Organization - Health Communication

WHO programme leaders asked me to explore whether existing graphic health warnings on cigarette packaging might be missing something, following concerns that audiences were becoming desensitised to established health-impact messaging.

I explored the question through a behavioural lens, using Schwartz's Theory of Basic Human Values, and analysed 574 graphic health warnings from more than 37 countries to identify opportunities for more culturally relevant tobacco-control communication.

The research generated new narratives for programme leaders to explore with country-level practitioners, both within and beyond public health. Initial findings were published in the 10th WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic (page 19).

Getting people in the same room around a topic doesn't automatically mean they're starting from the same place. People from different sectors and backgrounds may bring different priorities, language, assumptions and ideas about what needs to happen and how. Without opportunities to explore these differences, collaboration can be difficult before the work has properly begun.

Example: University of Bath & Bath & North East Somerset Council - Local Economic Development

The Living Well Now and in 2050 project explored the potential adoption of Doughnut Economics as a regional economic development strategy. Participants shared an interest in the framework, but brought different levels of knowledge, professional interests and perspectives.

I designed a programme of learning and engagement to help participants build their understanding of Doughnut Economics and explore its relevance across different contexts. This included a nine-week readalong, 24 interdisciplinary workshops, a public lecture, an online knowledge-sharing group and an urban photo walk. Together, these formats created different ways for people to engage with the framework and exchange perspectives.

The work identified practical conditions that supported cross-sector dialogue locally: informal and preparatory spaces, creative framing, sustained relationship-building, and ways of connecting evidence, lived experience and policy goals.

Ideas such as sustainability or regeneration can sound straightforward at a high level, but become less clear when we try to apply them to a particular profession, organisation or project. The challenge is to understand what these ideas mean in that context, and how they connect with the work already being done and the opportunities ahead.

Example: Lumsden Design - Place-Based Design

Lumsden Design is an international museum, heritage and destination retail design practice, working in contexts shaped by local identity, cultural meaning and social value. As expectations from clients and its own team grew around social and environmental impact, the practice had an opportunity to explore how these existing connections to place could inform a broader approach to sustainability. However, the team had mostly encountered sustainability through a reductive 'eco' lens, which had obscured the potential social and environmental impact of their work.

I designed and facilitated an interactive exercise to map the team's existing knowledge and experience, building a shared understanding of sustainability grounded in the internationally recognised definition of sustainable development. We then explored what was already present in the practice, what was missing and where new opportunities might lie.

The team recognised that sustainability was much closer to its existing strengths and interests than it had expected. What had initially felt like a constraint became a creative opportunity, with specific areas to research and develop to strengthen the practice's work and its communication with clients.