LA-DECK: a card-based learning analytics co-design tool

Human-centred software design gives all stakeholders an active voice in the design of the systems that they are expected to use. However, this is not yet commonplace in Learning Analytics (LA). Co-design techniques from other domains therefore have much to offer to LA, in principle, but there are few detailed accounts of exactly how such sessions unfold. This paper presents the rationale driving a card-based co-design tool specifically tuned for LA, called LA-DECK. In the context of a pilot study with students, educators, LA researchers and developers, we provide qualitative and quantitative accounts of how participants used the cards. Using three different forms of analysis (transcript-centric design vignettes, card-graphs and time-on-topic), we characterise in what ways the sessions were "participatory" in nature, and argue that the cards succeeded in playing very similar roles to those documented in the literature on successful card-based design tools.