Contextual Workshops: User Participation in the Evaluation of Future Comcepts

Abstract

Involving the users in the design process in order to understand their current situation and to generate new ideas for the development of future products and services is highly relevant to achieve a good result. There are several Participatory Design activities available for generating new ideas and concepts. There are also several activities available for the development of specific concepts and ideas . However, there are few if any activities available that address the choice of which concepts and ideas that should be further developed when there are several alternatives. In this paper we present an activity designed for this purpose: Contextual Workshop. The activity uses visual presentations of ideas and concepts as a basis for focus group meetings with presumptive users. Furthermore the focus groups consist of members who already know each other and the workshops are conducted in the context of use for the presented ideas and concepts . Several advantages but also drawbacks with the activity Contextual Workshops are possible to identify and these are also discussed in this paper.