Impact of constraints and rules of user-involvement methods for IS concept creation and specification

Devising new service ideas for information systems by deploying user-involvement approaches is a challenging task. The power of collective creation by involving users in designing systems has attracted attention; however, stakeholders with no design training face critical challenges in generating ideas. In this paper, by exemplifying our user-involvement method with game elements, ICT Service Design Game, in comparison with conventional brainstorming, we show the impact of constraints and rules in user-involvement methods when creating service concepts and specifications for information systems. The analysis is based on a comparative experiment on two design methods and shows that the constraints and rules of our game approach fostered innovative idea generation in spite of participants’ limited knowledge of and experience with design processes. Although our analysis is still in a preliminary stage, it indicates some positive impact of constraints and rules in design methods, especially when the methods are used by non-design professionals.