An approach towards considering users' understanding in product design

Abstract

Although different techniques for supporting the process of designing exist, there is, at present, no easy-to-use and pragmatic way of helping designers to infer and analyse product representations that users form in their heads and to compare them with designers' own understanding of products. This paper is part of ongoing research that attempts to develop an approach for supporting designers in identifying, during the early stages of the design process, whether specific product features evoke similar understanding and responses among the users as among the designers of those features. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.