{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,5]],"date-time":"2026-05-05T17:20:27Z","timestamp":1778001627381,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":45,"publisher":"ASME International","issue":"8","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,16]],"date-time":"2026-03-16T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1773619200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["asmedigitalcollection.asme.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":[],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,1]]},"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title>\n                  <jats:p>The advent of generative artificial intelligence (AI), such as large language models (LLMs), brings a vast range of possibilities and concerns for engineering design. The speed and efficiency of generative AI software can tempt designers to use these tools for the steps of the design process that are most time and resource-intensive, such as conducting thorough user interviews. This study presents results from an experiment comparing four sets of interview data: real-human interviews, designer-filtered interview data, simulated interview data from LLMs without demographic information of the interviewee, and simulated interview data from LLMs with demographic information of the interviewee. All interviews (real and artificial) used the same set of interview questions. The interviews were subsequently assessed for themes using three AI tools: BERTopic, latent Dirichlet allocation, and ChatGPT. These themes were then clustered into user needs by human design experts to generate a comprehensive list of user needs and to compare patterns of user needs between human and AI interviewees. We find that the AI interviews heavily rely on the questions being asked and are unable to convey to the designer if certain topics are irrelevant. On the other hand, we also find that the AI interviews can bring some areas to the designers\u2019 attention not initially present in human interviews that may be relevant to human users and could be verified via follow-up interviews with users.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1115\/1.4071386","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,16]],"date-time":"2026-03-16T14:52:46Z","timestamp":1773672766000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1115\/crossmarkpolicy-asme","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["User Needs Analysis in Design Research by Using Large Language Models as Interviewees"],"prefix":"10.1115","volume":"26","author":[{"given":"Madhurima","family":"Das","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/01ej9dk98","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}],"name":"University of Melbourne Department of Mechanical Engineering, , , \u00a0 ,","place":["Parkville, VIC, Australia, 3010"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Xingang","family":"Li","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/01ej9dk98","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}],"name":"University of Melbourne Department of Mechanical Engineering, , , \u00a0 ,","place":["Parkville, VIC, Australia, 3010"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Oluwatoba","family":"Fabunmi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/01ej9dk98","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}],"name":"University of Melbourne Department of Mechanical Engineering, , , \u00a0 ,","place":["Parkville, VIC, Australia, 3010"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Katja","family":"H\u00f6ltt\u00f6-Otto","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"University of Melbourne Department of Mechanical Engineering, , , \u00a0 ,","place":["Parkville, VIC, Australia, 3010"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"33","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,5]]},"reference":[{"key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0001","volume-title":"Product Design and Development","author":"Ulrich","year":"1995"},{"key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0002","volume-title":"Contextual Design: Defining Customer-Centered Systems","author":"Holtzblatt","year":"1997"},{"key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0003","volume-title":"Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods: Integrating Theory and Practice","author":"Patton","year":"2014"},{"issue":"1","key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0004","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1080\/01449290301782","article-title":"User Involvement: A Review of the Benefits and Challenges","volume":"22","author":"Kujala","year":"2003","journal-title":"Behav. Inform. Technol."},{"issue":"2","key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0005","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"021012","DOI":"10.1115\/1.4067388","article-title":"Elicitron: A Large Language Model Agent-Based Simulation Framework for Design Requirements Elicitation","volume":"25","author":"Ataei","year":"2025","journal-title":"ASME J. Comput. Inf. Sci. Eng."},{"key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0006","article-title":"Attention Is All You Need","author":"Vaswani","year":"2017"},{"issue":"159","key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0007","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1877","DOI":"10.48550\/arXiv.2005.14165","article-title":"Language Models Are Few-Shot Learners","volume":"33","author":"Brown","year":"2020","journal-title":"Adv. Neural Inform. Process. Syst."},{"key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0008","author":"Achiam","year":"2023"},{"issue":"7","key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0009","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"597","DOI":"10.1016\/j.tics.2023.04.008","article-title":"Can AI Language Models Replace Human Participants?","volume":"27","author":"Dillion","year":"2023","journal-title":"Trends Cognit. Sci."},{"key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0010","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1038\/s43588-025-00843-4","article-title":"Arti\u2013\u2018fickle\u2019intelligence: Using LLMs as a Tool for Inference in the Political and Social Sciences","volume":"5","author":"Argyle","year":"2025","journal-title":"Nat. Comput. Sci."},{"key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0011","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3605","DOI":"10.18653\/v1\/2024.findings-naacl.229","volume-title":"Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: NAACL 2024","author":"Jiang","year":"2024"},{"key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0012","author":"Grootendorst","year":"2022"},{"issue":"1","key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0013","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"993","DOI":"10.1162\/jmlr.2003.3.4-5.993","article-title":"Latent Dirichlet Allocation","volume":"3","author":"Blei","year":"2003","journal-title":"J. Mach. Learn. Res."},{"key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0014","author":"OpenAI","year":"2022"},{"issue":"4","key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0015","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"933","DOI":"10.1080\/10447318.2023.2171489","article-title":"Human-Centered Generative Design Framework: An Early Design Framework to Support Concept Creation and Evaluation","volume":"40","author":"Demirel","year":"2024","journal-title":"Inter. J. Human\u2013Comput. Inter."},{"key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0016","first-page":"V02AT03A009","article-title":"Visualization Tool for Interpreting User Needs From User-Generated Content Via Text Mining and Classification","author":"Stone","year":"2014"},{"key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0017","first-page":"V002T02A007","article-title":"Aspect-Sentiment-Guided Opinion Summarization for User Need Elicitation From Online Reviews","author":"Han","year":"2022"},{"key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0018","first-page":"V007T06A011","article-title":"An Extreme User Approach to Identify Latent Needs: Adaptation and Application in Medical Device Design","author":"Raviselvam","year":"2019"},{"issue":"5","key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0019","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1122","DOI":"10.1109\/JAS.2023.123618","article-title":"A Brief Overview of ChatGPT: The History, Status Quo and Potential Future Development","volume":"10","author":"Wu","year":"2023","journal-title":"IEEE\/CAA J. Auto. Sinica"},{"key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0020","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"121","DOI":"10.1016\/j.iotcps.2023.04.003","article-title":"ChatGPT: A Comprehensive Review on Background, Applications, Key Challenges, Bias, Ethics, Limitations and Future Scope","volume":"3","author":"Ray","year":"2023","journal-title":"Int. Things Cyber-Phys. Syst."},{"issue":"2","key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0021","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"020301","DOI":"10.1115\/1.4067319","article-title":"Large Language Models in Design and Manufacturing","volume":"25","author":"Zhao","year":"2025","journal-title":"ASME J. Comput. Inf. Sci. Eng."},{"issue":"2","key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0022","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"021001","DOI":"10.1115\/1.4066773","article-title":"A Conceptual Design Method Based on Concept\u2013Knowledge Theory and Large Language Models","volume":"25","author":"Chen","year":"2025","journal-title":"ASME J. Comput. Inf. Sci. Eng."},{"issue":"2","key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0023","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"021009","DOI":"10.1115\/1.4067333","article-title":"Designqa: A Multimodal Benchmark for Evaluating Large Language Models\u2019 Understanding of Engineering Documentation","volume":"25","author":"Doris","year":"2025","journal-title":"ASME J. Comput. Inf. Sci. Eng."},{"issue":"2","key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0024","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"021005","DOI":"10.1115\/1.4067085","article-title":"Llm4cad: Multimodal Large Language Models for Three-Dimensional Computer-Aided Design Generation","volume":"25","author":"Li","year":"2025","journal-title":"ASME J. Comput. Inf. Sci. Eng."},{"issue":"2","key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0025","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"024501","DOI":"10.1115\/1.4067332","article-title":"Do Large Language Models Produce Diverse Design Concepts? A Comparative Study With Human-Crowdsourced Solutions","volume":"25","author":"Ma","year":"2025","journal-title":"ASME J. Comput. Inf. Sci. Eng."},{"key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0026","first-page":"V006T06A008","article-title":"Evaluating Design Rationale","author":"Mirabito","year":"2024"},{"key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0027","first-page":"V006T06A025","article-title":"Human-AI Collaboration Among Engineering and Design Professionals: Three Strategies of Generative AI Use","author":"Ma","year":"2024"},{"key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0028","first-page":"V006T06A018","article-title":"Reading Users Minds From What They Say: An Investigation Into LLM-Based Empathic Mental Inference","author":"Zhu","year":"2024"},{"key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0029","first-page":"289","article-title":"Empathic Lead Users: The Effects of Extraordinary User Experiences on Customer Needs Analysis and Product Redesign","author":"Lin","year":"2007"},{"key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0030","first-page":"V006T06A002","article-title":"Emulating Cognitive Style in Large Language Models","author":"Agarwal","year":"2024"},{"key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0031","first-page":"V006T06A052","article-title":"Towards a Theoretical Framework for Using \u2018Context\u2019 in Engineering Design Processes for Global Health Applications","author":"Burleson","year":"2023"},{"key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0032","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"2085","DOI":"10.1017\/pds.2023.209","article-title":"How and Why Instructors Include and Exclude Social, Policy, and Ethical Considerations in Design Education","volume":"3","author":"Das","year":"2023","journal-title":"Proc. Design Soc."},{"issue":"6","key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0033","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"061402","DOI":"10.1115\/1.4057056","article-title":"What Do We Mean When We Write About Ethics, Equity, and Justice in Engineering Design?","volume":"145","author":"Das","year":"2023","journal-title":"ASME J. Mech. Des."},{"key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0034","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"101183","DOI":"10.1016\/j.destud.2023.101183","article-title":"Auditing Design Justice: The Impact of Social Movements on Design Pedagogy at a Technology Institution","volume":"86","author":"Das","year":"2023","journal-title":"Design Stud."},{"key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0035","author":"Frenkel","year":"2023"},{"key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0036","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"163","DOI":"10.4324\/9781003280392","volume-title":"Artificial Intelligence for Marketing Management","author":"Ferm","year":"2022","edition":"1st"},{"key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0037","author":"Korn","year":"2023"},{"key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0038","volume-title":"Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines","author":"Buolamwini","year":"2024"},{"key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0039","author":"Li","year":"2023"},{"key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0040","first-page":"85","article-title":"Power Hungry Processing: Watts Driving the Cost of AI Deployment","author":"Luccioni","year":"2024"},{"issue":"1","key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0041","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"e70037","DOI":"10.1002\/jee.70037","article-title":"Affordances and Limitations of Using Large Language Models to Generate Qualitative Data About Mental Health Perceptions in Engineering","volume":"115","author":"Sanders","year":"2026","journal-title":"J. Eng. Edu."},{"issue":"3","key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0042","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"337","DOI":"10.1017\/pan.2023.2","article-title":"Out of One, Many: Using Language Models to Simulate Human Samples","volume":"31","author":"Argyle","year":"2023","journal-title":"Polit. Anal."},{"key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0043","first-page":"893","article-title":"Syceval: Evaluating LLM Sycophancy","author":"Fanous","year":"2025"},{"key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0044","first-page":"1","article-title":"Generative Echo Chamber? Effect of LLM-Powered Search Systems on Diverse Information Seeking","author":"Sharma","year":"2024"},{"key":"2026050512594403300_CIT0045","author":"Jiang","year":"2024"}],"container-title":["Journal of Computing and Information Science in Engineering"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/asmedigitalcollection.asme.org\/computingengineering\/article-pdf\/26\/8\/081002\/7600269\/jcise-25-1543.pdf","content-type":"application\/pdf","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"syndication"},{"URL":"https:\/\/asmedigitalcollection.asme.org\/computingengineering\/article-pdf\/26\/8\/081002\/7600269\/jcise-25-1543.pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,5]],"date-time":"2026-05-05T16:59:49Z","timestamp":1778000389000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/asmedigitalcollection.asme.org\/computingengineering\/article\/26\/8\/081002\/1231904\/User-Needs-Analysis-in-Design-Research-by-Using"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,5]]},"references-count":45,"journal-issue":{"issue":"8","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,1]]}},"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1115\/1.4071386","relation":{},"ISSN":["1530-9827","1944-7078"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1530-9827","type":"print"},{"value":"1944-7078","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,5]]},"article-number":"081002"}}