How Smart Products with Built in Flexibility Empower Users to Self -Design Their Uses? A Theoretical Framework for Use Generation

The recent applications of information and communication technology in consumer products unveiled a promising form of user-product interaction. Somehow, a handful succeeded to empower users to design their uses. We call them “smart products with built in flexibility”. One of the best pioneering examples is IPad. Users generated uses ranging from utilizing the product as a book to employing it as a music instrument. In this regard, it is evident that their values are less about their performance of fulfilling a given task but rather captured in their ability to empower users to self-design uses. This is why, in this paper, we aimed at better understanding how they do so. To reach this goal, we developed, by exploiting modern design theories like C-K theory, a novel theoretical framework for use generation and applied it on two types of smart products with built in flexibility i.e. the ADIDAS One running shoes and an app for mobile phone called EMOTIO. Mostly, with our findings, we revealed the nature of design mechanisms that are proper to each of these products and subsequently identified the design tasks assigned to users. Relying on these findings, we finally considered managerial implications so that these products better promote users ´abilities to design uses as after all, they are purchased products.