USER GROUPS IN ACTION - THE MANAGEMENT OF USER INPUTS IN THE NPD PROCESS

This paper describes, through a case study of a small software company , an instance of the successful employment of user groups as a medium of design. Our work indicates that effective user groups require the p roduct development manager to accomplish a number of relatively distin ct social processes. These include establishing trust and credibility, managing expressions of user need, and involving users in the new pro duct development process by enlisting them as designers. The implicati ons of the findings are that participative models of the design proces s make demands on the social skills of product development managers wh ich need to be addressed in their education and subsequent career deve lopment. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd