CASE STUDY RESEARCH OF USER DESIGN METHODS

摘要

System users have been a demonstrated source of innovations and breakthrough ideas. While there is a wealth of literature dedicated to understanding this source of innovation for its ability to generate new markets; understanding how users design and change systems remains understudied. As an initial step, this research seeks to understand problem solving mechanisms employed by users. To observe this phenomenon, this initial research considers an extreme case of user design, the development of a complex system. Three categories of change mechanisms were employed by users: user, method and material. As a departure from traditional design methods it was found that users view themselves as a dynamic component of the system and change themselves or their behaviors to enable system capabilities. In the case considered, users were able to rapidly develop a complex system to meet new requirements; interestingly this was accomplished with either modular or minimally invasive equipment changes. While traditional flexible design tenets were present in the materiel components of the system (e.g. robustness and modularity), the skill and capacity of the system users provided a separate source of system flexibility.