The sources of use knowledge: towards integrating the dynamics of technology use and design in the articulation of societal challenges

Abstract

This paper reviews three strands of the innovation literature that have presented innovation as a distributed process that combines knowledge of designers and users: user innovations, Science and Technology Studies (STS), and domestication research. These literatures have explored different aspects of the micro-processes through which use and design knowledge are locally embedded. This paper pulls together insights from the literatures, and identifies an important gap: the connections between the local embedding of use and design knowledge, and the meso dynamics of industrial and technological change. The paper then develops a number of integrating concepts and propositions for a framework to study the co-evolution of use and design in innovation processes. It also demonstrates that this framework is most valuable in researching how societal challenges become articulated over time in processes of technological change and innovation.