ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a view on users and designers inspired by institutional theory, thus understanding both use and design as activities that take place in institutionally defined contexts. This prompts an analysis of the institutional criteria for successful design. From an institutional perspective success of any designed technology or artefact occurs when the design is institutionally matched with the institutional set-up as defined by the user context. User improvisation, in the light of the institutional analysis, becomes an indicator of an institutional mismatch between a design and the user. The challenge is to make current and future designers adopt a self-image where user improvisation is not a menace but considers subsidiarian design a norm and part of a designer's professional identity. A tendency in discussions about innovation practice is the sometimes disproportionate focus on formal variables, or what Jensen et al. refer to as the science, technology and innovation (STI) mode.
