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Dear All, At the risk of making an unwarranted assumption, I suspect that Rosan is referring to Liz Sander and Christene Nippert-Eng. Those who wish to know more about Liz's work and her approach can visit the excellent web site of her company, Sonic Rim http://www.sonicrim.com/ Those who wish to know more about Chris's work should read her book, Home and Work: Negotiating Boundaries Through Everyday Life. It was published in 1996 by University of Chicago Press. There is a difference between users and designers in understanding what consumers, clients, and customers want. Those who buy or use products know what they want. They are not always explicit about their needs, wants, or desires. We use consumer analysis research methods to learn more about the implicit and explicit desires of those for whom we design products and services. The difference between our responsibility and theirs is clear. We are required to know what we are doing and to be able to say so and to say why explicitly. Consumer analysis research methods help us to offer an explicit statement, and these help us to develop heuristic approaches to the design process that should lead to better products and services. Liz and Chris work with research methods that lead to explicit research outcomes. The case is that designers often work intuitively. Even in research, we apply a good measure of tacit knowledge and intuition to reach the outcome we seek. What distinguishes design research -- and research-based design -- from purely intuitive approaches is the intermediate step of an explicit statement. This is the case for research-based practice and for reflective practice, since reflective practice also involve rendering tacit knowledge and personal experience into explicit forms for shared understanding. Users and consumers have the right to an implicit understanding of what they want. It's our job to render this knowledge explicit so that designers and design teams can make products and services that genuinely meet user needs. Best regards, Ken Rosan Chow wrote: >i agree with Fatina that we all learn together. and >i think, the appreciation that everyone has something important to say >underlies the basic assumption of user study for design - that people know >implicitly if not explicitly what needs to be designed. I am sure Liz and >Christine will agree with this and they are two of the heavy weight >practioners in user study whom i have had in mind. -- Ken Friedman, Ph.D. Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design Department of Leadership and Organization Norwegian School of Management Design Research Center Denmark's Design School Faculty of Art, Media, and Design Staffordshire University (Visiting) +46 (46) 53.245 Telephone email: [log in to unmask]