Sharing User Experiences in the Product Innovation Process: Participatory Design Needs Participatory Communication

TLDR

This paper presents a model of communicating user experiences to design teams and develops a participatory communication tool explored in two empirical studies. The model includes three communication qualities—enhancing empathy, providing inspiration, and supporting engagement—and is evaluated through two studies: one testing the tool during idea generation by design teams, and another comparing four tools to assess empathy and inspiration. Our findings show that making receivers participative in communication turns designers into co‑creators and co‑owners, leading to higher acceptance and use, and that the participatory tool deepens understanding and intensifies use of user insights in the creative process.

Abstract

This paper presents a model of communicating user experiences to design teams. The model comprises three qualities of communication: enhancing empathy, providing inspiration and supporting engagement. A new participatory communication tool is developed and explored in two empirical studies. The first study investigates the use of the tool during idea generation by design teams. The second study compares four different communication tools to study the qualities of empathy and inspiration. Our findings indicate the value of making the receivers of the information participative in the act of communicating. In this way designers become co‐creators and co‐owners of the information, resulting in higher degrees of acceptance and use. The participatory nature of the proposed tool spurs deeper understanding and more intensive use of insights from user studies in the creative process.