Building Bridges Between User and Designer: Co-creation, Immersion and Perspective Taking
Designing for users rather than with users is still a common practice in technology design and innovation as opposed to taking them on board in the process. Design for inclusion aims to define and understand end-users, their needs, context of use, and, by
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Abstract Designing for users rather than with users is still a common practice in technology design and innovation as opposed to taking them on board in the process. Design for inclusion aims to define and understand end-users, their needs, context of use, and, by doing so, ensure that end-users are catered for and included, while the results are geared towards universality of use. We describe the central role of end-user and designer participation, immersion and perspective to build user-driven solutions. These approaches provided a critical understanding of the counterpart role. Designer(s) could understand what the user’s needs were, experience physical impairments, and see from other’s perspective the interaction with the environment. Users could understand challenges of designing for physical impairments, build a sense of ownership with technology and explore it from a creative perspective. The understanding of the peer’s role (user and designer), needs and perspective enhanced user participation and inclusion. Keywords Design for inclusion
Co-design Immersion Perspective taking
S. Martinez (&) University of Agder, Jon Lilletuns Vei 9, 4879 Grimstad, Norway e-mail: [email protected] J. Isaacs Robert Gordon University, Garthdee House, Garthdee Road, Aberdeen, Scotland AB10 7QB, UK e-mail: [email protected] F. Fernandez-Gutierrez Swansea University, Singleton Park, Swansea, Wales SA2 8PP, UK e-mail: [email protected] D. Gilmour K. Scott-Brown Abertay University, Kydd Building, Bell Street, Dundee, Scotland DD1 1HG, UK e-mail: [email protected] K. Scott-Brown e-mail: [email protected] © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 G. Di Bucchianico and P. Kercher (eds.), Advances in Design for Inclusion, Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing 500, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-41962-6_11
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1 Introduction There are generally two distinctive roles when designing, developing, evaluating or deploying technology: ‘user’ and ‘designer’. The former is the operator of machinery or artefact [1, 2]. The latter is the planner of the purpose, form and working of technology [1, 2]. Historically, the designer has been the central part of the process of technology design, due to the complexity and demands that the process requires. However, there are standards [3, 4] and methodologies [5–7] that work towards the understanding of user needs, context of use and participation of user in the design process. These methodologies and techniques open new possibilities for both parties: the user becomes a key contributor of the design process, realizing of the possibilities and limitations of the designer; the designer includes new perspectives in their design, experiencing as the user does.
2 Research Background and Methodology The work described here employed methodologies in technology design and innovation that take users on board in the design/evaluation process, as opposed to those that design in isolation from users. Examples of the former (re
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