Usability and user driven innovation - unity or clash?

Aim: To present different understandings of the concepts ‗usability‘ and ‗user driven innovation‘ and discuss if and how the built environment can benefit from these concepts and the unity of them. Approach and methodology: The paper is based on literature reviews of scientific journals and other influential publications within the academic fields of Facilities Management, Architecture and Engineering, Participatory Design and Software design.

Outline: The paper will discuss different understandings of the concept ‗usability‘ and its relation to ‗user driven innovation‘, which depends on the academic field and area of professional application. The concept of usability has its roots in evaluations of consumer products and user interfaces of computer software.

During the last 5-10 years there has been a new development of research in usability of buildings and workplaces. Recently researchers have identified additional key concepts to usability: Context, culture, situation and experience. Understanding those might be achieved by involving users. In this paper, usability of the built environment will be related to the idea of ‗user driven innovation‘ - participatory processes in which users are involved in design.

The question in this paper is to what extent, and how users can be involved in design processes to create better and innovative buildings of enhanced usability.