We present tangible design non-proposals as a technique for establishing and growing relationships in community-based co-design projects, particularly with Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Prior tangible design products from our research group were used to introduce our capabilities and interests and as tangible provocations to understand potential community interests for co-design. We describe how the non-proposals supported initial conversations and imagination, forming relationships, formalising an official relationship, understanding the scope and scale of community aspirations, artful appropriation, and how they morphed into a research prototype aligned to the community's needs and vision. We describe the ways that tangibles supported a mutual sensitisation process and realising project limits, bounds and misalignments. We contribute a framework for design non-proposals with both general characteristics and dimensions salient to our collaborative work with Aboriginal communities. We evaluate our own design non-proposals using the framework to present implications for seeding co-design processes.
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