Impact of Method Users on the Application of Design Methods - Assessing the Role of Method-related Background Knowledge

By conducting experiments in controlled environments, design researchers test the suitability of design methods for users in practice. However, users in practice bring a variety of background knowledge that is not reflected by the samples with homogeneous knowledge used in controlled environments, especially student samples. To investigate the influence of background knowledge, two method validation experiments with participants with different background knowledge were replicated and evaluated. The results show an influence of background knowledge regarding method use and outcome. Therefore, the background knowledge of the participants must be taken into account when planning method validation experiments in order to ensure that the results are valid for practice.