From User-Centered to Adoption-Centered Design: When HCI Research Becomes a Product

Fresh out of CHI 2015, I came across a paper that tackles a problem many HCI researchers quietly wrestle with: how (and whether) our research prototypes actually make it into the world as products.

In “From User-Centered to Adoption-Centered Design: A Case Study of an HCI Research Innovation Becoming a Product” (Chilana, Ko & Wobbrock), the authors present a detailed case study of an HCI research innovation moving from a university project to a venture-capital-funded startup, a transition that forced new priorities, new stakeholders, and new definitions of “success.”

What the paper is about

The paper opens by laying out the authors’ motivation: HCI methods change depending on whether you are validating a research idea, building a product, or growing a business. They describe the tradeoffs between classic user-centered design (UCD) and what they call adoption-centered design (ACD)—an approach that explicitly focuses on the realities of adoption in the marketplace, especially in B2B contexts.

They position their case study at the intersection of:

• technology transfer in software engineering,
• market innovation and commercialization,
• and questions about how we evaluate HCI research (especially generalisability and what kinds of evidence “count”).

After framing the problem, the authors essentially split the story into two “blocks” of knowledge:

1. HCI research and prototype validation
2. Commercial innovation and product adoption

Block 1: Building and validating the research prototype

The first phase focuses on the HCI journey—moving from concept to a validated research outcome through a sequence of evaluations:

1. Formative evaluation to inform interaction design
   They explore the design space and run a low-fidelity, paper-based user study to shape the interaction and refine early assumptions.
2. System feasibility / technical evaluation
   They test feasibility using a Mechanical Turk (mTurk)-based inquiry with simulated data, allowing them to probe constraints and performance without needing a fully deployed system.
3. Ecological validity evaluation
   They pursue real-world validity via a longitudinal field study, recruiting potential adopters and deploying the prototype “in the wild.”

This research process produces a solid HCI outcome: a validated design with demonstrated end-user value.

But the authors argue that this is not, by itself, enough. Evidence of user value does not automatically translate into evidence of commercial viability—the kind of proof needed for investors, revenue, or paying customers.

Block 2: Crossing into the market and adoption

The second phase describes what changes when the goal is no longer “publishable insight” but “market adoption. The lens widens to include factors that HCI research often treats as peripheral, such as:

• business model and productization,
• marketing and positioning,
• stakeholders and decision-makers (especially in B2B),
• value propositions,
• barriers to market entry,
• and the practical mechanics of B2B adoption.

In other words: adoption is not only about end users. It is also about procurement, workflows, integration, support ecosystems, incentives, and organizational dependencies.

The questions the paper raises

Throughout the paper, the authors surface a set of questions that feel bigger than this one case:

• Should we expect strong HCI research outcomes to be transferable into products? And is that within HCI’s scope?
• Should “potential for adoption” become a criterion in research evaluation?
• Does our traditional focus on generalisability (mostly from end users) limit technology transfer?
• How can we augment research evaluation to include stakeholder perspectives, not just user perspectives?
• Does it make sense to focus on adoption given the time lag between innovation and uptake?
• If adoption is a criterion, should “success” mean understanding adoption barriers rather than achieving adoption itself?
• Would adoption-centered perspectives actually increase product adoption—and are they compatible with high-quality, innovative research?

Discussion: What user-centered methods reveal and what they miss

In the discussion, the authors strike a balanced tone. On one hand, they argue that user-centered research innovation can be an invaluable foundation of a B2B software company. In their case, classic HCI evaluations helped them hit key milestones and understand user value.

On the other hand, they describe a blind spot: a strong user-centered focus can obscure adoption issues, because it may not reveal critical dependencies in the customer support ecosystem, organizational constraints, or stakeholder relationships that ultimately determine whether a B2B product gets adopted.

That gap is what pushes them toward adoption-centered design—an approach that generates knowledge specifically needed for customer acquisition, product prioritization, and business survival.

They also outline what adoption-centered design might look like in practice: what it cares about, how it could be incorporated into HCI research, and what methods might support it.

One of their more provocative arguments is that a more explicit adoption-centered approach could make it easier for investors, entrepreneurs, and others to recognize business opportunities in HCI innovations. Combined with broader systemic changes (like faster public visibility of research innovations and better awareness of university IP policies), they suggest this could contribute to a more mature discipline of HCI technology transfer.

Limitations and closing thought

The authors are careful about scope, acknowledging that their case study is limited to one technology, one business, one university project, and one perspective.

They conclude by calling for further work that helps transform HCI research from a source of ideas into a source of commercially disseminated solutions that create widespread value.

My takeaway

This paper is a useful reminder that good HCI and successful adoption are related but not identical outcomes. User-centered research is excellent at demonstrating value to end users, but when the goal becomes real-world dissemination (especially in B2B), we also need methods that surface the messy, organizational, and economic realities of adoption. The challenge is doing that without reducing HCI to product-market fit and without losing what makes research valuable in the first place.