Mapping Participatory Design Methods to the Cognitive Process of Creativity to Facilitate Requirements Engineering

Abstract

This chapter describes the User-Driven Creativity Framework: a framework that links several Participatory Design (PD) activities into one combined method. This framework, designed to be accordant with the mental process model of creativity, aims to integrate user involvement and creativity in the early stages of application requirements, gathering, and concept development. This chapter aims to contribute to recent discussions on how user-centered or participatory design methods can contribute to information systems development methodologies. The authors describe a mobile language learning case study that demonstrates how an application of the framework resulted in system (paper) prototypes and unveiled perceptions of learners and teachers, effectively yielding the necessary in-depth user knowledge and involvement to establish a strong foundation for further agile development activities. This chapter provides engineers or end-user representatives with a hands-on guide to elicit user requirements and envision possible future application information architectures.