Users, AI, or professional designers? The impacts of inspiration stimuli on customers' willingness to participate in user design

This study aims to explore how different sources of inspiration (namely, users, artificial intelligence (AI), and professional designers) as external stimuli influence customers' willingness to participate in user design. Results from four experiments show that inspiration from users, AI, and professional designers all positively influence customers' willingness to participate in user design. Self-competence is found to mediate such effects. Moreover, we further identify that the effects of inspiration stimuli on customers' willingness to participate in user design is moderated by customer knowledge and product type (hedonic vs. utilitarian). Customers with low level of knowledge are more likely to be inspired by user designs and AI-generated designs than professional designer counterparts. For utilitarian products, customers are more likely to be inspired by user designs and AI-generated designs. In contrast, for hedonic products, customers are more likely to draw inspiration from professional designers. Our finding suggests that open innovation communities should offer a variety of designs from users and AI to inspire their users, thus encouraging their participation in user design.