The use of images to elicit user needs for the design of playground equipment

Images are a powerful resource to convey meanings, particularly emotional values and experiences. Their application can serve as an important tool to communicate values that cannot be expressed easily through words (Garner and McDonagh-Philp, 2000). Eliciting user needs and aspirations often presents a challenge to design researchers. This is partly because users find it difficult to conceptualise and express their ideals and wishes. Design researchers deal with the difficulties of making user (verbal and visual) data comprehensible to product developers.