From imagination to experience: The role of feasibility studies in gathering requirements for ambient intelligent products

Abstract

From a User-Centered Design perspective, technology pushes are often regarded to as negative because the ideas behind these pushes not always address user needs, often causing products to fail in the market. Feasibility studies help close the gap between technology pushes and demand pulls. By inviting users to witness feasibility studies in an early stage of a design process, participants not only are able to provide input long before full functionality has been developed, but it also allows them to make that important step from imagining what an Ambient Intelligent product can do for them in their daily lives, to actually experiencing it. © Springer-Verlag 2004.