Users' Creative Responses and Designers' Roles

The writer draws on the ideas of “reader response theory” originally applied in literary studies, as well as empirical examples of user-modified designs, to show that users have their own preferences and and their own creative ways or tactics for dealing with user-unfit designs. Designers, especially those producing designs for public use, should avoid “one-size-fits-all” designs. They should rather reconceptualize their role and become facilitators who give users more flexibility and opportunities to actualize designs and to participate in the decision process.