Co-design has its roots in the participatory design tradition in Scandinavia. The participatory root emphasises the active engagement of the user in the design process. The Scandinavian context and in general Western societies, especially with their democratic traditions, are deemed appropriate for the application of co-design methods. When co-design is applied outside the Western context, adjustments have to be done to respond to different contexts. Comparison between the context of Indonesia and the UK is employed as case studies in this study. Indonesia is considered to have a different context from the UK, where the value of democracy is still in the development stage, and the influence of the authoritarian regime is still strong. This study seeks to understand better how the influence of the different social contexts might inform the application of co-design. Furthermore, this study also uses those different characteristics of the co-design to develop recommendations for an alternative framework of co-design methods that are appropriate for the Indonesian context.

The case study research was conducted on co-design projects both in Indonesia and the UK. In Indonesia, field research was conducted in Jakarta, Solo and Malang. While in the UK, field research was held in Lancaster, London and Worthing. The field research involved the member of the community, designers and other stakeholders involved in the co-design process. Field studies were conducted to determine the effectiveness of co-design based on four criteria: decision-making power, collaboration, flexibility and outcome-focused. Furthermore, the study also seeks on how the influence of contextual factors on the effectiveness of the co-design process.

This study found that the most influenced criterion by different context are decision-making power. The UK case studies have indicated the shifting of the designer's power in the decision-making process. In contrary, in Indonesia, the decision still led by the designer. Moreover, the findings of the other criteria in both contexts are equally effective. Even so, there are differences in contextual factors that influence the effectiveness of each of these criteria. Furthermore, from the comparative analysis of the two contexts, a co-design method framework for Indonesia was developed. The lesson learned process from the advantages and disadvantages of implementing co-design in both contexts resulted in an 8 point co-design framework recommendation.