Costs and Benefits of User Involvement in Design: Practitioners' Views

Many design approaches recommend some form of user involvement in the design of interactive systems, although there has been little empirical research directed towards assessing the benefits to be gained, and costs to be incurred, from having users involved during the design process. Moreover, the work that does exist has tended to take a narrow view, considering the gains and losses primarily from an organizational perspective. This paper offers richer definitions of the costs and benefits by which user involvement might be assessed, emphasizing the contrasting views of different ‘stakeholders’ in the design process. It presents and discusses two empirical studies conducted in the light of these definitions to examine the costs and benefits of user involvement as perceived by design practitioners.