The Hazards of Leaving Out the Users

The Design Implementation Framework

“…Participatory design actively engages prospective and authentic end users in a dialogue with designers during the development of a product (Bravo, 1993;Muller, 2003;Könings, Seidel, Jeroen, & van Merriënboer, 2014;Khaled, & Vasalou, 2014). In short, users are invited to "co-develop" the product as respected decision-makers rather than mere suggestion-makers (Bravo, 1993). This approach is already widely used in a variety of fields including software design, urban design, product design, graphic design, sustainability, labor studies, political science, and architecture (Muller, 2003).…”

Who’s in charge? End-users challenge graphic designers’ intuition through visual verbal co-design

“…The co-design literature is alert to paying lip service to the inclusion of end-users in design, while discussing the problems of excluding end-users from the design process. Criticisms are made when end-users are included to make suggestions rather than decisions, where designers extract end-user preferences rather than working inclusively (Bravo, 1993;Macdonald, 2015). Others attribute the proliferation of "user-unfit" design to the fact that end-users' needs are not seriously considered, urging designers to see their role as facilitators who enable end-users to participate in design (Sui, 2003).…”

The hybrid designer/end-user: Revealing paradoxes in co-design

“…User-centred design originating from the United States concentrates on 'user as subject' whereas participatory design practiced in Northern Europe since 1970 focuses on 'user as partner' (Bravo, 1993;Ehn, 1993;Kuhn & Muller, 1993;Sanders & Stappers, 2008). Co-design developed out of usercentred design as a specific instance of co-creation where designers who are trained in creativity work together with non-designers in the design process (Sanders & Stappers, 2008: p. 8).…”