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EXPANDING USER NEED FINDING THROUGH ABDUCTIVE REASONING

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 June 2023

Ryan Bruggeman ,
Estefania Ciliotta Chehade  and
Paolo Ciuccarelli
Ryan Bruggeman*
Affiliation:
Northeastern University
Estefania Ciliotta Chehade
Affiliation:
Northeastern University
Paolo Ciuccarelli
Affiliation:
Northeastern University
*
Bruggeman, Ryan, Northeastern University, United States of Americ, bruggeman.r@northeastern.edu

Abstract

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Prior research has shown the importance of latent user needs for enabling innovation in early product development phases. The success of a product is largely dependent on to what extent the product satisfies customer needs, and latent user needs play a significant role in impacting the way the product or service unexpectedly delights the user. Complications arise because traditional need finding methods are not able to account for the nuances of latent user needs. A user's need is multidimensional while traditional methods are built on deductive reasoning. The traditional method isolates parts of the user's needs, only pointing to what is deducible within its search space. To address this, we introduce abduction as a way to broaden traditional need finding methods. From a logic based argument it is shown that abduction accounts for the dimensionality of user needs by integrating various traditional need finding theories using design knowledge to isolate the latent need. This theoretical development shows that latent need finding must go beyond a deductive focus, to developing methods that are able to conjecture with the deduced facts in order to abduce the latent user need.

Keywords

AbductionLatent user needsDesign theoryUser centred designProcess modelling
Type
Article
Information
Proceedings of the Design Society , Volume 3: ICED23 , July 2023 , pp. 1745 - 1754
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

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