Designer's attitude: The forms of designer's interactions with customers in the design‐led innovation process

Abstract

This study explores the designer's attitude, illustrating the forms of the designer's interactions with customers in the design‐led innovation. While the innovator's dilemma has become a crucial factor within cross‐functional teams, a similarly challenging issue arises when attempting to integrate customers into design‐led innovation. A proposed model based on Bourdieu's theory of practice was developed to address this issue. This model was employed to conduct qualitative interviews with 35 designers, allowing for the collection of 59 narratives pertaining to systems and service innovation projects. By the analysis of the collected data, using a grounded theory approach, as a result, seven designer's attitudes are elucidated. Based on this, implications and conclusions are discussed.