“Imagine that… ” — How to Activate and Capture Users’ Ability to Think Creatively about Future Use

The topic of this paper is user ideation within front-end innovation. We present and discuss an approach which we refer to as “Imagine that… ”. With “Imagine that… ” users tell stories of how they imagine they will use a future IT system. The oral stories are captured online using a remote, unmoderated software tool. The distinguishing characteristics of the “Imagine that… ” approach are: (1) that the users ideate while on their own and therefore without being influenced by an interviewer/moderator and (2) that they come up with the design ideas and scenarios themselves rather than provide feedback on already developed design sketches, mock-ups, etc. The study contributes to the innovation literature by describing how and why narrative theory can be used to support the user’s ability to think creatively about future use. Our research also contributes to method development by showing that it is possible to obtain user input of relevance for the early stages of innovation in a fast, frugal way and unmoderated way.