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Expanding the Concept of Lead Users as Collaborators in Functional Apparel Design

When designing performance apparel, product developers often engage with users to ensure product appropriateness. The key problem is knowing which users have the potential to make valuable contributions in the apparel product development process. In this study, the authors explore lead users (LUs) as a subset of end users who have potential to develop innovative and commercially attractive products in other markets. In three sequential studies, the researchers explored LUs by first developing a measure to identify LUs. In the second study, product concepts developed by LUs in a collaborative design scenario were evaluated; and in the third study, prototypes of user-generated ideas were assessed in wear trials. This research was grounded in a functional design question of how to maintain thermal comfort during physical activity in cold weather. In the results of the studies, there was evidence that users who exhibit high LU and intrinsic motivation traits develop apparel designs that are highly evaluated by users.