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"We try to listen - but do we understand?" An explorative study about user involvement in technology-driven organisations
ISBN
978-1-904670-58-2
Type
conference paper
Date Issued
2014-08-27
Author(s)
Benker, Andreas
Editor(s)
Laakso, Miko
Ekman, Kalevi
Research Team
IWI4
Abstract
Technology-driven organisations are facing new challenges to gain a competitive advantage. It becomes even more challenging to be a step ahead of the competition through technical advance while better addressing user needs may be a way to differentiate. When aiming to develop products that better address the user needs it becomes crucial to understand who are the users and what are their needs, what is the value of user information, and how the information can be used to design more desirable products that may lead to a competitive advantage. We conducted a multiple case study at two technology-driven companies in the aviation and healthcare industry that are aiming to involve users more into the new product development (NPD) process. A series of 14 qualitative interviews revealed two main findings that are discussed: (1) there are different types of information needs according to the development stages and (2) the value of user involvement needs to be recognised from both, the company and its customers.
Project(s)
Language
German
HSG Classification
not classified
Refereed
No
Book title
Proceedings of NordDesign 2014 Conference
Publisher
Aalto Design Factory
Start page
325
End page
334
Event Title
10th Biannual NordDesign Conference 2014
Event Location
Espoo, Finland
Event Date
27.-29.08.2014
Subject(s)
Division(s)
Eprints ID
234423