In the era of artificial intelligence and the digital economy, users are transitioning from passive product consumers to active value co-creators. As a core technology bridging the physical world and digital space, digital twins provide a novel enabling pathway for this shift in the role of "prosumers". This paper aims to explore how digital twins facilitate the transformation of users from traditional consumers into co-creators within the design process. Through a review of the literature, this study constructs an intervention framework for digital twins applicable to the conceptual design phase of products. Furthermore, a detailed workshop research plan is proposed, which employs a mixed-methods approach combining qualitative and quantitative analysis to systematically investigate how digital twin environments specifically translate user roles and foster co-creative behaviors across three core stages:requirement definition, concept divergence, and concept testing. The paper elaborates on the workshop design, participant recruitment, task procedures, and data analysis methods, thereby revealing the mechanism of digital twin-driven role translation. The findings are intended to provide a concrete theoretical model and practical guidance for enhancing the efficiency of conceptual design and establishing a new human-machine collaborative co-creation paradigm.
Jin et al. (2026) studied this question.