Patterns of Designer-User Interactions in the Design Refinement Process

In this paper, we empirically explore designer-user interaction patterns in the design refinement process. To do this, we ask the following research question--what do interactions between designers and users characterize distinctive patterns in the design refinement process? As an empirical approach, this study analyzed twenty-seven design refinement project narratives with a grounded theory appraoch and synthesized three patterns, regarding six sub-designer-user interaction patterns in the design refinement process. The significance of this study is to empirically theorize the patterns of designer-user interaction and suggests a theoretical / practical guideline for researchers and practitioners in the communities of design science and information and organization studies.