From testers to co-creators: Why participant roles are evolving

Est. read time: 5mins

Blog summary:

Qualitative research is shifting from a model where people simply test finished ideas to one where they actively help create what comes next. As studies move into real-life routines and capture behaviour, emotion, and context in the moment, participants naturally reveal adaptations, workarounds, and unmet needs that spark better innovation. Co-creation is rising because participants want a voice earlier, and because modern challenges sit at the intersections of daily life lenses like use, identity, shopping, health, and digital habit. By designing iterative, grounded tasks, focusing on real trade-offs, and treating people as collaborators, brands can unlock richer insight, reduce concept risk, and build products and services that genuinely fit into lived experience.

From testers to co-creators: Why participant roles are evolving

For years, qualitative research treated people as testers: show them a concept, ask what they think, measure the reaction. But across industries, that model is breaking.

Today’s participants are already prototyping solutions in daily life — fine-tuning routines, hacking products, and inventing workarounds long before brands arrive with a “final” idea.

So the role of research participants is evolving too: from evaluators to collaborators.

This isn’t a trend limited to design sprints or niche innovation labs. It’s showing up in mainstream product, shopper, health, finance, and digital UX studies — with participants ideating earlier and more confidently when tasks feel concrete and life-sized.

The opportunity for brands is simple:
Stop asking people to judge what you made. Start inviting them to help make what they need.

What’s driving the shift?

Three forces are converging:

  1. Everyday life is now the test lab.
    People experience products and services in motion: at home, in store, on the commute, mid-routine. In-context capture is giving researchers access to those real moments, not tidy after-the-fact opinions.

  2. Participants expect a voice, not a survey.
    Co-creation tasks: sketching, showing alternatives, building “ideal” versions — are becoming normal early in studies. People are willing to ideate when they see a clear, relatable problem to solve.

  3. Innovation cycles are faster, messier, and more iterative.
    Brands can’t afford to wait until a concept is polished to learn whether it fits. They need feedback loops while ideas are still forming.

Testers vs. co-creators (and why it matters)

Testers help you validate. Co-creators help you discover.

When participants only test:

  • you learn if something works,

  • late in the process,

  • through your framing.

When participants co-create:

  • you learn what should exist,
    earlier in the process,

  • through their lived framing.

That difference shows up in outcomes:

  • richer qualitative insight (because people reveal meaning, not just preference),

  • lower concept risk (because ideas are shaped by real constraints),
    higher adoption (because products fit into routines, not around them).
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How to turn participants into co-creators

Co-creation doesn’t mean handing over the steering wheel. It means designing research so people can build with you.

Here are four practical principles:

1) Start with lived problems, not abstract concepts

People co-create best when tasks feel “life-sized.” Instead of “tell us what you think of this app,” try:

  • “Show us the moment you wish this app helped you most.”

  • “Walk us through what you did instead.”

2) Use iterative, structured creativity

Co-creation thrives in waves:

  • Observe the real moment

  • Reflect on what felt off

  • Imagine a better version

  • Re-test the idea in context

This keeps ideation grounded in reality, not wishlists.

3) Design for trade-offs, not fantasies

The best co-creation tasks ask people to choose between real tensions:
taste vs. health, speed vs. ritual, price vs. reassurance.
That’s where usable innovation lives.

4) Treat participants as collaborators in the narrative

Language matters. Avoid “respondents.” Use:

  • participants
    moments

  • real lives

  • lived experience

  • emotional signals

It sets the tone for partnership.

What co-creation looks like in diary and mobile ethnography

Diary studies are uniquely suited for this shift because they:

  • capture decision-making as it happens,

  • let people bring their environment into the story,

  • create space for reflection + invention, not just reaction.
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In practice, that can look like:

  • “show-and-build” tasks (record the workaround, then redesign it),

  • concept remix boards (choose, combine, and explain),

  • real-world prototype trials with mid-study iteration,

  • “if you ran the brand…” creative prompts tied to a real moment.

The result is emotional ethnography at scale… insight into what people do, feel, and need in context, with participants actively shaping the next idea.

The payoff for brands

Brands that embrace participants as co-creators gain:

  • Faster confidence in early concepts
    Ideas are pressure-tested in reality, not hypotheticals.

  • Innovation rooted in routines
    Products are built around how life is lived, not how teams assume it’s lived.
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  • Trust through empathy
    Co-creation signals respect – it shows you’re designing with people, not at them.

Moving forward: The future of research is collaborative

The evolution from testers to co-creators isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s a response to how people live now: hybrid, emotional, fast-changing, and already inventing solutions in the wild.

If research is meant to reduce uncertainty, then co-creation is the highest-value form of insight, because it reveals not only what people think, but what they are ready to build with you.

Aoife Looney