Unveiling Synergies Among University Partners in Developing a Dairy App in Uganda: An In-Depth Exploration of the Design Thinking Process from Ideation to Prototyping and Testing

A common goal drives university-community engagement: understanding local community challenges and collaboratively developing solutions. Recent studies highlight co-creation benefits, yet partner involvement is often insufficient, leading to ineffective outcomes. This research explores two key questions: (1) How can institutions engage partners to develop tools reflecting the preferences of diverse partners? (2) How do partners perceive the value of co-creating community engagement tools? This article examines a qualitative case study in which dairy farmers, university faculty, and software developers cocreated an app, utilizing the three stages of the design thinking model: ideation, prototyping, and testing. Faculty and farmers first developed app content during the ideation stage, then created and pre-tested a usable “Beta1” prototype app. The prototype was then iteratively tested in workshops with the farmers, gathering feedback on the app’s content and functionality, as well as the farmer’s perceived value of cocreating it. The final prototype, “Beta2”, reflects the dairy farmers’ preferred features. Findings also reveal five broad themes regarding co-creation: deeper connection to engagement outcomes, deeper connection to the institution, empowerment to share their knowledge, performing a service for themselves, and digital competency. The case contributes to the literature on partner engagement and co-creation in university-community engagement, demonstrating that involving diverse partners in the design thinking process results in more user-friendly tools responsive to partner needs. Future research should evaluate further use of the co-created app as a tool for knowledge-sharing and community engagement.