For the creation of inclusive design solutions, designers require relevant knowledge about a diversity of users throughout the design process. Besides understanding users’ needs and expectations, the ways in which users perceive and experience the environment contain valuable knowledge for designers. Since users’ perceptions and experiences are mainly tacit by nature, they are much more difficult to communicate and therefore more difficult to externalize. Hence, more insight is needed into the ways designers can build knowledge on Universal Design through direct user contact. In a project called ‘Light up for all’ architecture students are asked to design a light switch and socket, elegant, usable and understandable to the greatest extent possible by everyone. Two workshops with user/experts are organized in the first stages of the design process in which students could gain insight into users’ experiences and perceptions through direct contact. Three data collection techniques are used to analyze the teams’ design processes: (1) a design diary, (2) observations of the workshops and (3) a focus group. By means of analyzing collected qualitative data, we have identified three different design aspects that affect designers’ UD knowledge building process. First, findings give indications on values and limitations of working with selected design artefacts when externalizing users’ experiences. Second, the value of stories clearly affected designers’ deeper understanding about users’ experiences. Finally, results show that in some situations, designers encountered contradictory information between observations and verbal conversations. These insights may help researchers to better understand designers’ process of building knowledge on UD from users’ experiences and perceptions, which may result in better incorporating users’ experiences when designing for everyone.

Abstract. Besides the need for designers to build a strong body of user knowledge within the domain of Universal Design (UD), linking knowledge about user needs and design practice is fundamental for increasing its uptake. Designers often experience difficulties when transferring user needs into inclusive design solutions. The tacit nature of user needs considerably complicates this transfer. Therefore, this paper examines how designers may create and apply knowledge on UD. Concepts from Knowledge Management are used to shed new light on designers' knowledge creation process about user needs. By relating UD processes to Nonaka's SECI model, an analytical framework is proposed in which four modes of developing knowledge enable us to analyse the continuous dialogue between tacit and explicit knowledge from user to designer. As such, this paper explores to which extent the SECI model offers interesting insights into designers' knowledge creation process on user needs.

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