From novice to expert - User's search approaches for design knowledge

Abstract

As the arrival of the individual creativity era, innovation needs user creativity from the general public, nowadays, the enterprise provides the components or tools of products for users to utilize their creativity, and thus, users can be viewed as another form of designers. This research is based on the concept, "user is innovator", using LEGO bricks and its players with high design capability as the research subjects, proposes a qualitative method on users' design knowledge, the procedure includes five steps: user subject identification, status attribute classification, design knowledge categorization, search approach analysis, and knowledge model construction. This article proposed the design knowledge connotation and search approaches of four statuses of highly-involved users (junior expert, exhibition participator, business manager, award winner). When users possess the needed design knowledge and search approaches, it does not only fulfill individual creativity, also indirectly expands the creativity origin of the enterprise and increases its economic value. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.