Photovoice is a fun and engaging tool to make learner experiences more visible.
Imagine you work at a community college and you want to tell learners’ stories in their own voices, authentically and powerfully. Photovoice is a participatory research method that invites learners to talk about their lived experiences through photography and guided reflection.
In human-centered design, we believe those closest to a problem are best equipped to solve it. Photovoice operationalizes this belief by positioning students as experts in their own journeys. This tool generates qualitative data that surfaces emotional, environmental, and systemic insights often missed in traditional surveys or focus groups. It ensures the design process is not theoretical, but responsive to the real needs of learners.
Developed within participatory action research, Photovoice was formally created in the 1990s by Caroline Wang and Mary Ann Burris as a way to center marginalized voices in community health research. It has since been adapted across sectors, including by Education Design Lab (Lab) facilitators as another way to bring learner voice into human-centered design.
Why it matters
Photovoice is more than just a data collection tool; it’s a bridge. By sharing images of their daily realities, like a bus stop after a night class, or a kitchen table doubled as a desk, or a work uniform, students turn individual perspectives into shared experiences. This creates “photojournalistic” impact that builds empathy not just for the leadership viewing the work, but for the students documenting their own resilience.
It helps solve:
The data gap: Translating vague concepts like “belonging” into actionable design insights.
The power imbalance: Shifting students from “subjects of study” to “co-designers” of change.
The narrative bias: Moving past institutional assumptions to see the “hidden” reality of student life
How Photovoice is transforming colleges
For the Lab’s Reimagining Community Colleges (RCC) design challenge, which focused on redesigning community colleges to better support the evolving needs of learners, Photovoice was used to surface student experiences related to learning, skills, and systemic barriers in a way that felt personal and tangible. For example, prompts such as “Show a skill you’ve learned that you’re proud of” and “Where do your skills show up but get overlooked?” help reveal informal learning and transferable skills that are often overlooked in traditional academic systems.
Other prompts, such as “When have you felt pulled between school and something important like work, health, or family?” or “Is there something you wish existed at school to make things easier?” highlight the structural challenges students face as they navigate higher education. These questions work well for RCC because they move beyond abstract feedback and allow students to show how policies, supports, and learning environments affect them in everyday life.
As a result, here are few examples of institutional transformation from the project:
1. The “invisible” expert
The prompt: Show a skill you’ve learned that you’re proud of in or outside the classroom.
The student voice: A learner at Forsyth Technical Community College (Forsyth Tech) in North Carolina submits a photo of crochet stitch they’d been working on. The caption reads: “My grandmother taught me the basics of crochet, but since her teachings, I have learned more complex stitches and techniques from Youtube. However, I am not an arts major; I will receive my associate in science this May. I wish there were more opportunities for arts classes for Early College students at the Stokes Campus. I know so many talented people who do not get to express their artistic talents in class because they are either not on the arts track or cannot commute to the main campus for classes.”
The institutional insight: Students are often masters of “informal” skills like troubleshooting tech, digital editing, or manual crafts, that aren’t reflected in a standard transcript, and they don’t know how to talk about it.
The actionable change: This student’s story highlights a common problem: Helping students to make their skills visible. Forsyth Tech is shifting its entire approach to providing personal coaches who teach students how to translate “practicing for hours” into professional terms like “attention to detail” and “work ethic” that bosses actually look for. Finally, by partnering directly with local businesses, the college ensures these students get their work in front of the right people.
2. The “breakroom” classroom
The prompt: Where or to whom do you go (physically or emotionally) when you need support?
The student voice: Another Forsyth Tech student shares a photo of a sunset on an open road. The caption: “I go for a drive around town or wherever the road takes me when I feel very overwhelmed. I am 100% remote learning, so sometimes being at home is suffocating (stay at home parent as well). So fresh air and getting out the house is always the thing I just need to feel better!”
The institutional insight: For many learners, the “traditional” campus experience is a luxury they cannot afford. Barriers aren’t just academic; they are temporal and environmental.
The actionable change: By noticing students studying in “hidden” spaces, such as in their cars between shifts or on their phones during a lunch break, Forsyth Tech is prioritizing digital innovation. This means they are building mobile-friendly platforms and lessons that don’t require sitting in a classroom for three hours straight. Instead, they are breaking education down into high-quality, 15-minute windows that fit into a busy life. Essentially, the college is moving away from a “one-size-fits-all” schedule and redesigning its technology so that a student can earn a degree in the small gaps of their existing workday and family life.
3. The symbol of belonging
The prompt: When has your learning felt disconnected or like it wasn’t adding up to anything meaningful?
The student voice: A student at Saint Paul College in Minnesota submits a photo. The caption: “In my first semester, learning sometimes felt disconnected and overwhelming, with courses that didn’t seem related to my passion for data science or creativity. This picture of me looking up captures that feeling of searching for meaning. Over time, I realized those classes were helping me build important skills like communication and problem-solving. Now, looking up symbolizes hope and trust in the process knowing every step contributes to the bigger picture.”
The institutional insight: “Belonging” is often treated as a buzzword, but Photovoice turns it into a physical location. It identifies exactly where an institution succeeds (or fails) at making students feel welcome.
The actionable change: This change shows that the college is looking beyond grades and schedules to focus on how students actually feel on campus. By using real-life images of the student experience, the school realized that being a student is often stressful and lonely, so they’ve made a promise to prioritize the human side of education. Instead of just being a place for classes, the campus is being redesigned to include dedicated spaces for wellness and belonging, where students can decompress.
The Process: When and how to use it
Photovoice is effective at any point in the design process. At the Lab, we find it most powerful during the first phase — our understand phase — as a way to ground the problem.
How it works in practice
Prompts: Students receive intentional prompts, such as: “Show a skill you’ve learned that you’re proud of,” or “Where do you feel the pull between school and life?”
Capture: Students take photos of everyday objects, spaces, or routines. No professional photography experience is required.
Reflect: Students submit ~6 photos each with a short caption explaining the “why” behind the image.
Incentivize: We recommend offering stipends (e.g., gift cards) to honor the students’ time and expertise as co-researchers.
Translate: These artifacts are shared with leadership as “conversation starters” to identify friction points and spark institutional change.
How did you create or decide which questions to use?
The prompts were intentionally designed to balance three areas: Student strengths, meaningful learning experiences, and system barriers. The design team wanted to ensure students could highlight what they are proud of and where they feel motivated, while also sharing moments where learning felt disconnected or difficult to sustain. Questions were also framed visually so that students could easily represent them through photos of everyday objects, spaces, or routines, such as work uniforms, study spaces, calendars, or family members. This approach makes the activity accessible even for students without photography experience and encourages authentic storytelling. The prompts align with RCC’s human-centered design approach, which prioritizes understanding learner motivations, lived realities, and systemic challenges before proposing institutional changes.
Here are some questions to help you get started:
- Show a skill you’ve learned that you’re proud of — in or outside the classroom.
- When have you felt most prepared for life after school?
- Where in your journey have you felt like you were building toward something bigger?
- What does flexibility in learning look or feel like to you?
- Where or to whom do you go (physically or emotionally) when you need support?
- What keeps you going?
- Where do your skills show up but get overlooked?
- Have you ever learned something you were proud of, but didn’t know how to show it to others (like teachers or employers)?
- Capture a moment where school felt connected to real-world job experiences.
- When has your learning felt disconnected or like it wasn’t adding up to anything meaningful?
- When have you felt pulled between school and something important like work, health, or family?
- Have you ever had to choose between school and something important?
- Is there something you wish existed at school to make things easier or more manageable?
- If you could change one thing about school or learning, what would it look like?
How did you get students to participate?
To get students involved, our campus partners invited all students to participate in this project. The activity was introduced through a short Zoom orientation presentation that explained what Photovoice is and why their perspectives matter. The presentation emphasized that students did not need photography experience and that the goal was simply to capture moments that represent their real experiences. Framing the project as “Your voice, your lens, your story” emphasized that students didn’t need to be professional photographers; they just needed to be themselves.
By providing clear examples of photos and captions, the college made the project feel easy and approachable rather than like a class assignment. The focus was entirely on empowering the students to share their real lives, not judging artistic skills. To show their time and perspectives were truly valued, every student was paid a stipend for participating.
How did you have students submit their work/responses to you?
To make the submission process as easy as possible, students used a shared digital folder to turn in their work. Each student created a subfolder labeled with their name and uploaded their six best photos. To give the photos context, they included captions, either typed into the upload box or shared via a Google Doc, explaining the meaning behind each image.
This organized system allowed the college to collect “real-life” snapshots of the student experience. Later, during design sessions, these photos and stories served as artifacts, helping teams see through the students’ eyes. By examining these real-life moments, the college could make better decisions about how to reimagine itself to better fit students’ needs.
Facilitation tips
To ensure Photovoice leads to actual institutional change, and doesn’t just result in a “nice slideshow,” the facilitation must be intentional.
- Curate “system-sensing” prompts: Instead of asking “Show us your day,” try: “Show us a ‘workaround’ you created because a school process was too difficult.”
- The “caption as data” strategy: A photo of a closed door is just a photo. The caption is where the data lives. Use guided reflection to move the student from describing a scene to analyzing a system.
- Create a “decision-maker gallery”: Don’t just email a PDF. Create a physical or digital “gallery walk” for college leaders, community partners, faculty, and staff. Ask them: “Which of these images challenges an assumption you held about our students?”
- Close the loop: Always follow up with participating students. Tell them: “You showed us X, so we are piloting Y.” This prevents “data extraction” and builds a true partnership.
The “A-ha!” moment
What surprises most partners is how much systems-level data emerges from a simple image. A photo of a confusing hallway sign can reveal more about “student belonging” than a 20-page campus climate survey.
A note of caution
Without a clear pathway to action, Photovoice risks becoming performative. To use this tool effectively, you must:
- Establish ethical guardrails (consent and anonymity).
- Prepare leadership to see both the highlights and the uncomfortable barriers.
- Commit to action. Use these stories to change structures, not just to decorate a slideshow.
This guide was authored by Bryana Ellis, Education Designer at Education Design Lab. Bryana designs and facilitates learner-centered initiatives that reimagine pathways in higher education. Her work focuses on co-designing with students and institutional partners, using participatory research methods to translate learner voice into strategies that expand access, agency, and belonging for underrepresented learners and communities.
