Tactile co-design tools for complex interdisciplinary problem exploration in healthcare settings.

We explore the role of tactile co-design tools to enable interdisciplinary collaboration in complex healthcare settings. We present the Tactile Tools method and discuss our comparative case study of five healthcare settings then demonstrate how affordances of tactile co-design tools can support equality in decision-making, improve literacy within teams and challenge established power structures. We show how re-usability and the affordance of "sliding" help to manage complexity and circumnavigate traditional hierarchies. Design diagrams are investigated as a way to capture the exploration space and support better problem understanding in interdisciplinary teams. We argue that the Tactile Tools method enables participants to collaboratively explore complex interdisciplinary (healthcare) challenges and helps teams to empathize with the lived experience of health seekers. • Tactile co-design tools enable complex problem exploration. • Tactile co-design tools improve experience of interdisciplinary teams. • Tactile co-design tools support interdisciplinary collaboration. • Design traces including diagrams help capture interdisciplinary team dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]