Drawn from experience: Coproducing a graphic guide with arctic water sector workers

In remote Alaska communities, water truck drivers play a critical role in hauled water provision, navigating icy roads, extreme temperatures, and challenging terrain to serve customers. Despite their importance, these frontline workers lack standardized training resources, relying instead on informal and inconsistent methods that contribute to service disruptions, worker injuries, and high turnover. In this study, we address this gap by coproducing a visual training manual—the Graphic Guide (GG)—with water truck drivers in a Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta community. Using the principles of community-based participatory research and knowledge coproduction, we engaged stakeholders through interviews, shadowing, and community immersion across four phases: needs assessment, content development, content verification, and resource validation. The resulting GG is a durable, accessible, and culturally inclusive resource that preserves institutional knowledge while supporting new driver training. Drivers validated the GG's accuracy and usability, reporting immediate improvements to safety practices and training consistency. The visual format accommodates diverse educational and linguistic backgrounds, and the coproduction process fostered worker ownership and buy-in. The GG also helped to bridge communication gaps between the frontline workers and municipal leaders, facilitating greater understanding and support. This study contributes to infrastructure research by centering workforce expertise, challenging traditional top-down approaches, and demonstrating how participatory methods can produce effective, inclusive training tools. The coproduction framework offers a transferable model for other essential services in remote communities or contexts with high workforce turnover. Future research should explore the GG's long-term impact on workforce sustainability and expand its application to other sectors, including wastewater services and customer education.