The process of user-innovation: A case study on userinnovation in a consumer goods setting

Manufacturers usually benefit by dividing their innovation processes into distinct phases inorder to ensure that the development activities are performed efficiently in an appropriatesequence [1]. Users usually do not apply such structured processes. They follow a moreintuition-driven approach. In this paper we analyze the way users improve or develop novelproducts. The field of our research is a new and rapidly evolving consumer market, the sportof kite surfing.We identified a sequence that underlies the approaches of user inventors. This sequenceconsists of two major stages, (1) idea generation and (2) idea realization, each againsubdivided. We propose that a manufacturer in...