Inclusive Rigour Canvas and Design Workbook
Meaningful participation, complexity-aware practice and methodological bricolage can go hand in hand in your MEL design.
Choosing an Inclusive Rigour approach enables evaluations that generate deeper insights, foster real-time learning, and strengthen trust— all the while enhancing quality.
If you are seeing opportunities to deepen or broaden complexity-aware and participatory practice, but are not sure how to go about it, then you might find our Design Canvas a useful guide.
The Inclusive Rigour Design Canvas offers a structure for how to apply the Inclusive Rigour concepts through an intentional MEL design process.
It is not a step-by-step plan, or a checklist, but instead invites groups to engage in reflecting deeply about the quality of participation and the quality of evidence and how they influence methodological choice.
Access the Canvas and Design Workbook
The Inclusive Rigour Co-Lab uses circles of action, reflection and learning to engage with actors in the global evaluation ecosystem. Therefore, the Co-Lab wants to maintain a learning-focused dialogue with individuals and organisations using the Canvas. The Canvas and design workbook are available for free – you only need to fill in the form below and the resources will be automatically sent to you, including English, French, Spanish and Portuguese versions.
We will only contact you to enquire how you have been using the Canvas and to answer any questions you may have. You won’t be signed up to any newsletters. Please also connect with us on LinkedIn to join the conversation.
Who is the Canvas for?
The Canvas can be used by a small core team as a practical design tool, but it can also support a broader participatory design workshop involving multiple stakeholders. Many organisations and individuals may find it useful, including:
- In-house and external evaluators
- MEL coordinators and practitioners
- Evaluation commissioners
- Evaluation researchers
- Organisations who want to intentionally and explicitly adopt Inclusive Rigour in their practices and contexts.
How can the Canvas be used?
The Canvas can be used in a variety of ways. You can use it to:
- Guide your design decisions
- Ask critical questions about values, purpose, users, and priorities
- Make trade-offs visible and clarify what “good enough” means
- Encourage intentional, well‑reasoned design
- Reflect and adapt during different stages of a project – ideally you would use it at the start, but you could also use sections part-way through a process.
- Help explain and justify design choices to others using the language provided in the Canvas.
This is intended as a hands-on resource. We encourage you to print this resource and use it to support active and reflective learning in practice. If you are using a professional printing service and need a different version of the PDF, please feel free to contact us on participate@ids.ac.uk. To facilitate an online process, you can import this PDF into collaborative whiteboard programmes.