A prototyping method as a tool to support communication between designer and user

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Innovation as a central instrument for business competitiveness requires the development of user-relevant products and calls for a regular assessment of development goals and actual user needs. In the past, methods for user-integration and -participation have been established accordingly, in the course of which prototypes are propagated as adequate means to support the communication process. However, differences in the interpretation mechanisms between users and designers regarding the products, their functionalities, and corresponding prototypical representations have seen little research so far. Yet, an understanding of these processes seems necessary to avoid misinterpretations and consequently misdevelopments and is needed to effectively integrate information from the user into the development process. It seems to be particularly beneficial to identify, structure, and evaluate the variables affecting the inherent communication process. The objective is to clarify which charac-teristics, boundary conditions, disturbances, and filter variables from the interpretation of prototypes by users and designers to consider in the design of prototypes. This enables the designer to transport a specific set of information accurately, to compensate for mutual differences in interpretation, and thus to record user-feedback in a goal-oriented and valid way and to let it correctly inform the development process.