Author
İlhan, Işıl Oygür, Thompson, J. A. A.
Publication Date
2019-12-18
Publication Place
-
Wiley
Type
Periodical
Language
English
Digital
Yes
Manuscript
No
Library
Özyeğin University
Library Asset ID
0963-1690
Record ID
fb42fc82-dca5-484b-b449-9298edbb0e59
Library Location
Industrial Design
Date
2019-12-18
Sample Text
The user is a critical factor in design and innovation. Firms experiment with different approaches to involving the user in design processes, which results in new forms of intra- and extra-organizational collaboration. The establishment of in-house design research units within design consultancies is one such intra-organizational user-centred design practice that targets designer-researcher collaboration. This paper addresses this issue and reports on the findings from multiple case study research exploring the impact of in-house design research teams on designers' user knowledge construction. We utilized constructivist learning theory to assess major aspects of these intra-organizational user-centred design practices. Ethnographically informed field studies were conducted at six design consultancies representing three design fields (i.e., architecture, industrial design and interaction design) in the Northwestern United States. Three of the consultancies have design research departments and three do not. The findings indicate that in-house design research units play a role in designers' user knowledge construction via their results, processes and human resources. Among these, the active participation of designers in the research process was observed to have the largest impact because of its contribution to designers' contextual and collaborative learning about users.
DOI
10.1111/caim.12347
Cilt
29
