Toolkits for User Innovation and Design: an Exploration of User Interaction and Value Creation in the Watch Market

This study is the first in-depth empirical analysis of design process and outcome of socalled “toolkits for user innovation and design”, a very recent method for integrating customers in new product development and product design. Evidence from four experiments conducted in the watch market shows that user-designers engage in learning-by-doing behavior and yield highly heterogeneous new products. Their willingness to pay for their self-designed products exceeds that for the bestselling standard watches of the same technical quality up to 200%.

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