How Should We Design Technology With Diverse Stakeholders Who Wish Not to Attend Design Activities Together?

The relationship between the Nigerian police and citizens is strained, hindering the co-design of conventional technologies to enhance community policing (CP) initiatives, hence the imperative to involve both in the design of a usable CP technology that can carter for their needs.Our preliminary findings indicate that Nigerian citizens are reluctant to participate in co-design activities with the police due to discomfort and fear, which could potentially bias the design outcomes.Designing a CP technology with such stakeholders is crucial, but a new challenge for the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) community, as no existing framework has addressed it.We introduce Conflict Sensitive Design (CSD), a co-design approach that leverages mediation techniques (tension reduction, leveling, common ground reminder, separated meetings, formalizing agreements) to iteratively collect, analyze, and reconcile design inputs, ensuring that the final design is usable for CP enhancement.Our case application worked in CP technology requirements gathering with Nigerian CP stakeholders, and it could be extended to related HCI contexts.We present a structured approach to conflict resolution in co-design processes, and discuss the lessons learned as a spotlight to guide other designers in related contexts.