12 – limitations: user driven innovation
Purpose
This section will enable you to critically reflect on user-driven innovation and to understand its limitations.
statement 1
In current innovation practice, there has been a shift from technology-driven innovation to user-driven innovation.
This is a very good thing. It’s much smarter to look carefully at what users need and to adapt your technology to that than to force your technology into the market.
Still, there is a catch to user-driven innovation: just as with the other drivers for innovation that were discussed previously in the book, the user doesn’t tell you what to do. Users can be great sources of inspiration for innovation, but how you react to these sources of inspiration is up to you. Again, this reaction is framed by your organisation’s culture, values, beliefs and norms. Even user-driven innovation needs the brand to interpret.
statement 2
Thus, the catch with user-driven innovation is that doing user research in itself doesn’t drive innovation. The research results will not be unique to your organisation. Another organisation, doing the same kind of research with the same users, may arrive at the same data. It’s what you do with the data, how you internalise it and interpret it based on your own values and norms, that turns ‘generic’ user data into your own user insights. And insights have the capacity to drive innovation.
statement 3
Next time you hear people talk about user driven
innovation, ask them if it’s the user that drove the innovation or if it was the organisation’s interpretation of that user.
Join in the discussion on the pros and cons of user-driven innovation by commenting below. Please share your own insights. I am curious what you think!
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Team Synergize&Co
If a company makes a user research and afterwards wants new insights for their products, they will probably select the data that are fitting their values. This of course, seems obvious, but if the point of spending time and money on user research is to have a real vision of what users want, treating this data is faking the results. Like saying to the company what they want to hear. The position of the company in this matter is very important, they can either stay in their already cosy known area or they can take risks, listen to the users insights staying as much as they can in their brand values.
Balance between staying in their brand values they know, listening exactly to the user and their technology. Obviously, a company can’t only take in account users’ insights, there are much more matters involved in the design process.
If the company really wants user driven innovation, this interpretation should be done very carefully, because looking into what a user really needs can give the company a very successful and outstanding product. User driven innovation has to be applied with great care, knowing which parties are involved in the wish of making something really user focused.
We don’t have to forget the difference between the benefits that user research provides to a company and the implications of what user driven innovation means.
As a conclusion, this could be used for a company that needs a completely change, new image, because currently the company is not working properly. Turn in it around implies taking a lot of risks, but that is the only thing a dying company can do. Listening to the users and gathering as much valid data as possible, can give to the company a very new track to follow, that might make survive the company.
Oct 18, 2011 @ 3:24 pm
EFCOM
During this reflection, we identified some problems that can occur while using user-driven innovation. For example, research on users can be easily biased since users might want to satisfy the brand that is performing the research. In this sense, users’ research is used sometimes only for “justification” of the innovation of a company. Users are not a source of innovation because they cannot give clues for new developments. They can inspire but they are not the ones who will give the solutions. We also figured out that companies can be a bit shallow with their personas and just romanticise them by making Hollywood characters out of them which usually do not relate with the average user.
It is different when there is co-creation of products, for example the creation of Wikipedia or the concept of products being developed based on some habits of users (eg. Peanut butter with chocolate inspired on people eating peanut butter with chocolate sprinkles). Of course it is not always the case that these examples are successful because there should be a large number of people participating and they should be motivated and selected in an effective way. It is also nice when these innovations come in a more natural way and not in a forced way like by questioning the users. Maybe in a more interactive way or through experiencing something like the example of the development of hashtags at Twitter.
And last of all it is interesting to consider that some companies have a very strong opinion and rely on this opinion without looking at the users’ views / needs that much. Some examples of companies are Apple and Facebook. A metaphor for this case could be a person who chooses his clothes for himself and doesn’t ask for the opinion of his environment. In this case the person has a strong personality which usually attracts a lot of attention. A brand could be personalised in such an example of a self-secured person.
Oct 23, 2011 @ 4:49 pm
6MINUS1
Traditional user-driven-innovation relies heavily on asking the user what their needs are and how they would like to fulfill this need. This type of innovation yields several limitations. While discussing these limitations, two main areas arose.
Firstly, traditional ways of doing user-driven innovation use asking the future user of the innovation about their needs. The problem lies in the fact that users are not aware of the full spectrum of their needs and they will not be able to give you a reliable answer. In the figure, users will be able to express their explicit needs and it is possible to observe the observable needs. However, the tacit and latent needs are harder to find out and require more than just traditional user-research to explore.
Secondly, users are not trained to design and think in the future. People, and therefore the users, do not always know what kind of innovation is possible. When you ask them to foresee the future and their potential future needs, they will rely heavily on their current context and current solutions. They are focused on the now and here. Even brands often don’t see how they can innovate a specific product, because they are stuck in the mindset of their current products. That is, as we see it, one of the most important limitations of traditional user-driven innovation; users do not know what the possibilities are and can therefore not be at the start of a real innovation project.
There are ways to overcome the limitations of the traditional user-driven approach. New research methods can be applied like for example contextmapping, which helps to get a deeper understanding of user needs. For the creation of products methods can be applied like or co-creation, where users design and designers facilitate the design process. This approach can be called: human-centered approach. We think that this name wrongly suggests a totally different approach to innovation. The difference is that a user-driven approach focuses more on the upper half in the figure above, while the human-centered approach focuses more on the lower half of the figure. They both focus on needs and they both focus on users. The difference is that human-centered innovation tries to find hidden needs and create unique business opportunities. Even though radical innovations seem to be coming from just intuition and vision, they always originate from a need at some level.
Oct 24, 2011 @ 6:13 pm
Group 14
User-driven innovation has the advantage of resulting in products and services the users actually value. However, to recognize user needs or user expectations in reality is not the easiest thing to do. One problem is that most times people do not know they need something before they had the item in question explained or visualized to them and that creates a challenge for the designer who has to interpret the results from the user research in order to find out what the user really mean. One example of this is a user study, which investigated what users wanted to be improved concerning their landline phones and the answer given was that they would prefer longer wires to allow them to move around better in their homes. When looking back today it seems obvious that the solution for this problem was actually not to make the wire longer but to create a wireless phone. Finding these actual needs that are not clearly expressed might be easier if research results are studied with the brand values in focus. With this approach, a more individual solution can be found and the product will also fulfill the vision of the brand in a better way.
Oct 25, 2011 @ 2:03 pm
Group 13 - Paper Planes
If we compare user-driven innovation to design-driven innovation we can see a clear distinction between the use of users in the design process. The type of approach depends on the target you set for the innovation. It can either be radical or incremental. A company should have a portfolio with both incremental and radical product. Incremental innovations secure the company’s cash flow where radical innovations are needed to keep their position in the market. It is thus a strategic decision to innovate radical or incremental.
User-driven innovation can be useful for incremental innovations. It enables companies to create products that are in line with the dominant language in the market, but in that sense are also very conservative [Verganti, 2009]. Incremental innovations are successful because people will always ask for an updated product language. But if a company only invests in incremental innovations it will not be very successful. Verganti (2009) says about this. “If all companies invest in incremental design and if all do it the same way using the same languages, design loses its power to differentiate one firm from the other.”
Radical innovations on the other hand are not suited for user-driven innovation. Radical innovations focus on changing the meaning of things. Meanings that people do not know of or cannot imagine yet because they are new to the world. Users are not able to unveil these meanings to the designers directly. Ernesto Gismondi also made a very clear statement about user-centered innovation: “Market? What market? We do not look at market needs. We make proposals to people.” [stated on page 48 of Verganti, R., 2009, Design-Driven Innovation: Changing the Rules of Competition by Radically Innovating what Things Mean, Harvard Business Press.] This statement also applies to involvement of users in testing of the concept “if a company tests a breakthrough change in meaning by relying on a typical focus group, people will search for what they already know. And they will not find it in a product that is radically innovative, unless they encounter it in the right scenario.”[stated on page 49 of Verganti, R., 2009, Design-Driven Innovation: Changing the Rules of Competition by Radically Innovating what Things Mean, Harvard Business Press.] So this statement implies that users will most likely not even appreciate the radical innovation at first because it is different from what they are used to and therefore user-driven innovation is not suitable for radical innovation.
If we conclude this we can say that user-driven innovation can be useful in creating incremental innovations. By closely following user needs they can create successful products that are fitting in the dominant language in the market. However companies should also invest in radical-innovations. Radical innovations are about making proposals to people, creating a new market. Therefor radical-innovations are not suited for user-driven innovation.
Oct 25, 2011 @ 2:13 pm
G3
The fact that innovation has become more and more driven by the users instead of by technology, is a logical change. After all, the users are the ones to decide whether or not to use the innovation, so why not use their needs as a drive for the innovations.
Within our group we discussed user driven innovation, this discussion was mainly based on a critical view on user-driven innovation. We believe that companies should not hold on too much to the ‘user needs’ that is, for users it is hard to define their actual needs. Users often say what’s wrong, and therefore their needs are based on experiences and expectations.
Actually, designers are the ones making the decisions during the process of designing the innovation, and this way try to live up to the expectations of the users. These expectations are interpreted by the designers and are generalized into a potential user, for example by making personas or consumer journeys. We believe this is not the real need of the user, as it will always remain an interpretation. Therefore we think it is important to stay down to earth when defining the user or the user needs and in the end make the real users sense that the innovation was made for them. After all, between the user-research and the implementation of the innovation, the gap is somewhat fuzzy for the user. This is where the choices are being made, depending on the brand values and interpretations of the user needs.
In implementing the innovations, on the one hand it is important to involve many different people, while on the other hand we think that too many people involved in that process can cause a mess, where people have different interpretations and ideas. Though, involving many people in the innovation can reduce the risk of a mess by combining brand value with the expertises.
We can conclude that for user driven innovation it is very important to take a very close look at the information and keep in mind that the user need is mostly based on interpretations of the user needs and assess the brand value to implement an innovation. In the end, as long as the user has the feeling they drove the innovation, they are satisfied.
Oct 25, 2011 @ 6:02 pm
GROUP 18
Within this consideration of user-driven innovation, it is important to see the distinction between user-driven innovation and user research that Roscam Abbing is making. User research is always part of (and even a base for) user-driven innovation. The user research is used as a driver for innovation, in which we can find a lot of strong points. We share the opinion of Verganti (Design-driven Innovation) where he states that customers/users don’t actually know what they want or need in the future. This does not necessarily implicate that user research is useless, as Steve Jobs is often quoted. This merely implies that it the user is not necessarily direct input for the innovation process, but needs consideration before using it as a driver for innovation. We agree with Roscam Abbing on the fact that the raw data from user research needs interpretation in order to be able to use it as a driver for innovation.
It of course seems dangerous to ‘treat the data’ as TeamSynergize&Co is stating. But as is shown in the lectures by Pieter Jan Stappers (3rd and 10th of October 2011), raw data is never a mere result. The results need to be applicable to your brand and need to be used as an input for the next innovation phase. It is not about faking results, it is about applying results to your company and brand. As Roscam Abbing states ‘the research results will not be unique to your organization’ and will therefore give you no sustainable competitive advantage within the competitive field.
According to us, this dilemma of interpretation and generalization of data is pre-eminently a great example of showing the strengths and opportunities of ‘design thinking’. Design thinking abilities such as abduction (as mentioned in the talk on design synthesis by Jon Kolko of Frog Design) and the application of raw data to a brand can show a lot of value in such determining processes. Easily said, this is the power of a designer.
Oct 25, 2011 @ 11:48 pm
leCON7
We agreed that there were advantages of the user driving innovation but such innovation still needs the brand to succeed. User needs can be articulated (know wants or needs) or unarticulated (unknown wants or needs)(Hamel and Prahalad, 1994). According to Hamel & Prahalad it is easy to find the articulate needs, as the users are able to express these. The articulate needs have to be fulfilled for a product to succeed. However, the unarticulate needs users have are the valuable data companies have to look for; it is the unexpected that gets users exited and these needs have to be targeted to be able to differentiate from your competitors.
Finding these unarticulate needs cannot be done through straightforward user-research, interpretation of consumer behaviour is needed. Interpretation of this data creates inspiration and direction, which can help create an innovation roadmap.
A different study, performed by Lynn et al. (1997) concludes that the reason that U.S. firms have lost marketshare to Japanese technology-driven firms during the 80s due to the fact that U.S. management used user-research to reduce risk, which also caused a huge reduction in discontinuous innovations. Japanese firms on the other hand connected new technology to market opportunities and leapfrogged the U.S. firms.
In conclusion, a company needs to have knowledge of their users, yet has to form their own vision of the future, as users often do not know how the future will be. The company needs to find values and beliefs of their users and apply these in determining their strategies and directions.
Oct 27, 2011 @ 12:10 pm
Paradox 20
Traditionally, user-driven companies evaluate their already existing product by interviewing their customers. In this way they get an insight in the customers wishes concerning adaptions of the current product. Customers are not encouraged to think outside the box. This way of doing research will always lead to incremental changes.
A trend that is taking place is that more and more companies start user-driven innovation in order to get insights in their customers’ daily life and the influence of their product in this. This is because the companies start to realize that with the traditional research method you will keep thinking between the borders of the possibilities of your current products, instead of thinking in the wide possibilities of innovation within the large borders of your brand identity.
We think this broader and more free way of user-driven research will lead to much more usable insights which enables the company to innovate in a progressive way, which will allow them to distance themselves from their competitors.
A remark that has to be placed is that the company needs to be very open to possible innovations that result from the insights that initially do not stroke with their production or logistic processes or even to their current business strategy, and unfortunately this is not always the case.
Besides brand-driven, user-driven and technology-driven innovation, also design-driven innovation is used. This way of innovating focuses on changing the meaning of things with totally new-to-the-world products and therefore leads to radical changes (Verganti, R., 2009, Design-Driven Innovation: Changing the Rules of Competition by Radically Innovating what Things Mean, Harvard Business press.). We think if a company wants to make a new-to-the-world product, the best approach is to be design-driven. Even the more open way of applying user-driven innovation will not help to achieve this.
An issue we also discussed is the question whether the purpose of the product is actually interpreted by the customer in the way the company wants, due to for example social, environmental or technical changes. This is another reason why user-driven innovation can be very important in some cases; to be able to notice and respond to those kinds of changes.
An example of this ‘misinterpretation’ is leather ware. The original purpose was to make something warm that lasts long, but due to cultural changes leather products became a fashion item.
We figured that changes in purpose are mainly happening with fast moving consumer good companies, rather than hi-tech good companies, since it is much harder to misinterpret technology than FMCG-goods.
Oct 28, 2011 @ 3:14 pm
Group 15
We decided it was important to look at the reasons why you would use user-driven innovation and therefore we made a list of pros and cons concerning this method.
One issue was that the findings of your user research could be interpreted differently, which is neither a pro nor a con, but it is something to keep in mind.
Generally we found that “driven” is a misleading term because the strategy for your innovation will not be driven by the user.
We think that this method should be called: user-’inspired’ innovation.
Oct 30, 2011 @ 5:04 pm
3plus3
With our team, we reflected on both advantages and limitations of user driven design.
Advantages:
User driven design enables the designer to make products that fit the users’ abilities and desires: User driven design makes technologies accessible for users in such a way that they understand and value the final product/service. User driven innovation is `safe` for the company, because the R&D team knows that consumers are ‘waiting for their products’, even before the design is developed. Of course, user driven innovation is not a guarantee for sales (a designer may misinterpret the data or produce a poor product design), but it is less risky than for example technology driven innovation. A positive side-effect of user driven innovation: The company is forced to keep abreast of developments in the market. Furthermore, user driven innovation can be very inspirational for designers.
Limitations:
A very important limitation of user driven innovation: Collecting data is not enough; it is up to the company to interpret this data (Roscam Abbing, 2010). In theory, every competitor has access to the same consumer data. So user driven innovation should be more then collecting data, otherwise a company has no competitive advantage at all. Another limitation of user driven innovation: Users don’t know the directions of their future and very often they don’t know what they want (although they might claim they do). This means that a company needs a vision or brand promise, which gives user driven innovation a direction and brings the user’s wishes to a higher level. If a company makes exactly what the user wants, the products of the company will not surprise the user. In the end, a company will not survive when it is not able to surprise the consumer. With our team, we had an extensive discussion about this topic. In the end, we agreed that the graph developed by Roberto Verganti (see picture) very well describes this danger of user driven innovation: A pure user driven innovation will stay incremental on both technology axis and meaning axis.
A last drawback of user driven innovation we discussed is that in some cases, outcomes of consumer research will not match the brand promise. If so, a company can either change their brand promise or search for a different target market. If the latter is the case, user driven innovation is time-consuming and inefficient, because a company can endlessly research target markets. In this case, brand driven innovation would be a better choice.
Nov 01, 2011 @ 6:32 pm
The TwentyONEs
12 – limitations: user driven innovation
1) The limitation of user research techniques: Although the current techniques are improving at times, but it’s never to say what we saw is what it is. Like observation it is hard to observe the natural behavior when the objects know you are observing them.
2) The limitation of users itself: Users are used to be pushed by the technology, usually they do not have the insight of the future technology, like the famous example of Ford, users always tell you they want a faster horse, and it’s hard to predict their reactions. Such innovation as Apple did, they pushed new technology to the users and succeed, but you cannot get the idea of new technology directly from the users them self.
3) The limitation of interpretation: Users have multi-layer of needs, researchers are easily stuck with the basic need (like they always want more choices) as the basic needs are more visible and obvious, but ignore the higher-level of needs (like desire to feel respect), it’s a gap between know the needs and truly interpret them. Somehow we find out not all the needs of user will have the business potential, actually users have combined drives for purchasing a product (like apple, they don’t buy it because it is the most useful product), so it’s crucial for the company to decide which combination of needs they want to realize in their incoming product will ensure success.
4) The limitation of innovation group: Thus, from the contents mentioned before, we find no matter how great the method or techniques are, they cannot ensure success if the group don’t have certain qualities like ability to foresee and being holistic, so it depend a lot on the group as well as leader’s characters.
the TwentyONEs
Nov 02, 2011 @ 11:12 am
Team Nine
Reflections on the limitations of user-driven innovation
User centered innovation is based on fulfilling the needs of the users. Sometimes a customer does not know what he wants until it is presented to him. However if it is for an innovation it is not there yet, so how do they know what they want or need. This will most likely lead to incremental innovations. This is technology driven innovation, but still the company is has to communicate this innovation in a way that is acceptable and user friendly. So indeed there should be a combination of technology-driven innovation and user-driven innovation. If the company fails to implement their innovation in a economical way, the competition will take the innovation and will improve it, free riders principle. So the ROI is not reached.
Everybody is different, but you have to create an innovation that is suitable for a specific target group. Though the users in these target groups have similarities, they are still different persons with different values and needs. It is hard to transfer this to for instance a certain kind of menu for a mobile phone that everybody prefers. The company has to go bring the findings of their user-research to a deeper level understanding what user prefer in general and how they transfer this in their new products.
User-driven innovation is very useful to provide a company with deep insights. The most important part is how these insights are interpreted and used in the innovations. User-driven innovation does not provide a guideline in how to do this. This is a niche right here, there should be more literature available to guide a company to transfer user-driven innovation to their own company with values and strengths.
This example is to show how a company can interpret a certain user need, a form of user-driven innovation. The need is to open a bottle, how a company transfers this need into a product depends on the company. Alessi is a company that is focused on design and have a clear design language were they differ. There is kind of a nuance for this however, there is also a user need for a ‘design’ bottle-opener. So it can both ways, but in the end in depends on the companies interpretation of the users need, values and resources of the company, what products they produce.
Nov 02, 2011 @ 5:41 pm
Team Coffee-break
In general, user-driven innovation encompasses both meeting user needs and involving users in the process. In comparison with the traditional understanding of innovation, user-driven innovation considers people as a resource of the process, which allows manufacturers and designers to ponder the product and service by standing in the shoes of consumers.
We do not quite agree with Group 14′s explicit assertion – ‘user driven innovation can only be incremental’ (eventhough they have quoted some good book). Some of the most innovative ideas come from observing people and trying to decipher their ‘pain-points’. For example, consider GE’s MAC 400, a portable ECG machine. (Harvard Business Review Paper: How Ge is disrupting Itself, Jeffery R. Immelt, Vijay Govindrajan, Cris Timble).
We believe that user-driven innovation has some advantages. In the light of the participants’ views, users consider the innovation process as exciting as the real result of the process. They have a strong incentive to devote in the process finding solutions because they really recognize their problems and needs. In this way, users provide many different ideas to the designers and manufacturers. Furthermore, the traditional innovation ways requires financial resources to gain the information from users while user-driven innovation helps access to information easily.
On the other hand, user-driven innovation is also limited. First, users are not always aware of all the aspects of their needs. We humans easily adjust ourselves to the imperfect environments and products. In many cases, the publics don’t recognize that they have this need until the products go into the market. It also depends on the extent the users involve in. 6 minus one has brought out a very important aspect -context mapping. “Different levels of knowledge about experience are accessed by different techniques.”(Contextmapping: experiences from practice, Froukje Sleeswijk Visser, Pieter Jan Strappers, Remko van der Lugt)
Second, despite of purposing the problems or needs, users may not always be professional of thinking in radical innovations. It’s not only limited by their imaginary to current products, but also their background knowledge. In other words, users usually restricted by the current products and fail to visualize the further possibilities.
The point we want to make is, the possibilities of user driven innovation is unlimited but we need to decipher the ways to harness it.
Nov 02, 2011 @ 9:00 pm
group 23
This is a difficult problem to handle, on one hand customer opinions are the most important start when doing NPD. However depending on the customer and the methods used, the opinions of costumers can have different importance.
We think that the limitations may vary in the way that the user-driven innovation is performed. The way of performing the research needs to be correlated to the research-topic itself. As methods used in the research phase of customers can be either Need-driven or Product-driven (E. van Kleef, Consumer research in the early stages of new product development: A critical review of methods and techniques, 2005). Thus the need-driven methods are, in opposite to the product driven ones, used for extracting the more internal and latent opinions from customers. These opinions can then later be interpreted into finding new innovations. One way of finding these needs is by using empatic design. Here the multidisciplinary research team follows the customer into their environment and observes them doing their tasks.
Of course there are also disadvantages by using these kinds of methods, the gathered opinions might be hard to build concrete concepts on and also, obviously, not many customers would want a big research team hanging over their shoulder when their doing everyday things.
If you look at Lenovo’s strategy of innovation, we see this: “… lead the industry with an ecosystem of devices, services, applications and content for people… ” Yes, Lenovo doesn’t not only focus on laptop business, but they also want to develop relative devices and services etc to fulfill their brand goal and promise. This USB secure hard drive is a particular device that Lenovo presented. From this point of view we see the connection between Lenovo’s brand and this small device, and also how Lenovo use their brand to drive this innovation as well as using users’ needs and desires.
However it could also be argued if another company, with access to the same data and insights would have come up with the same idea. We believe that this might be the case sometimes, nevertheless the innovation should follow the brand image and promise, and not to many companies share these also.
Nov 03, 2011 @ 11:20 am
- shiqi -
User driven innovation is used more and more to make products that fit the consumer needs. There are several reasons to support this development. First, it makes you fit the wishes of the user, if they don’t like the innovation/product you won’t sell. Thus it gives you good insights in what people really want. It also not only gives the design team the opportunity to get to know the consumer but also the whole company, which gives consumer involvement within the whole company.
The negative aspects of user driven innovation are that consumers cannot always predict or communicate their own future needs. Consumers can be very conservative, they are no professionals. They cannot foresee what is good for them in the future, consumers don’t recognize the need. In literature this is referred to as a ‘latent need’; a need that people are not yet aware of [Murray, H. A. (1938). Explorations in Personality. New York: Oxford University Press].
Some companies don’t necessarily listen to the consumer needs and put a new technology or product on the market (the iPad for example). The consumers can experience the new product and then experience the need for the new technology or product. Like Steve Jobs said once: “A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”
If a company uses user driven innovation and it turns out that there is no need at all (there is no pull from the consumer), that it might be wise to figure out if there could be a unforeseen need. The consumer can be pushed, with a new product, to experience a new need.
Another important aspect is to keep triggering the consumers’ expectations to keep selling products [a product life cycle, Marketing Strategy - Walker, Mullins, Larreche - p.174]. If you listen to the consumers needs and give way more than they need, you will live up to your brand promise too soon. Your brand promise is already fulfilled and the curiosity of consumers in your new products, and your brand can decrease. Apple’s iPhone is a very good example. When the iPhone 3GS was launched it came with a 3.2 megapixel camera without a flashlight. At that moment there were already many mobile phones with camera’s with higher resolution and flashlights on the market, the technology was already available. Next to the camera, their interface and screen was at that moment one of the best you could get on a mobile phone. The point of this example being: by not giving the consumers the best camera and all of the latest technologies, Apple kept triggering the expectations and needs of its consumers. After a relatively short period the new iPhone was launched with a new camera and not that many extra’s but still everyone wanted it. Also see the attached picture, mainly the ‘life cycle extension’ part.
In the end, despite what your results are when you use user driven innovation, it is the company that decides what is good for the company. You have to stay close to your norms and values and sometimes ignore or disregard the needs and wishes of the user.
Nov 03, 2011 @ 10:54 pm
[PENTAGON]
LIMITATIONS: USER DRIVEN INNOVATION
User centered design has proven to be the most ethic approach given so far to product design. This type of approach has also its limitations regarding the process of design itself. Users are not consciously aware of their dreams and desires. These are often expressed in a tacit way with raw data. It is the job of researcher to interpret it and communicate it efficiently to the design team. The use of design research, ethnography and its different tools only represent half of the work needed. Even if gathering of data is done in a proper way, the result of this process relies on the ability and the experience of the researchers to cluster data, and make tacit relations to move along the different layers. The ability to analyze data and translate it into knowledge is the keystone of this process.
Another important limitation is the involvement of experts in different areas of expertise. This highlights the importance of the creation of common understanding. If this is not achieved, the message from the research department is misinterpreted within the different areas of the design team. Once this information is synthesized it permeates different levels of the organization and influences strategic corporate decisions.
On the other hand during the design process of user centered products, designers often lose track of different constraints. Managers often base their final decisions on market and cost feasibility. This narrows the possibility of delivering a 100% human centered solutions.
Nov 04, 2011 @ 7:05 pm
Group 02
User Driven innovation – is is really the user that drives the innovation of the perception of the user?
First off all we want to state that user driven innovation often is better described as user guided innovation. In a lot of products they say the have performed innovation driven by the user (of his/her needs). However we think that innovation is in those cases guided by the users needs rather than driven. It has been common in design practice to include the user in your design, and it has been for quite a time. But as time progresses the markets has changed and made the user more and more important; let us give an example:
The computer business has long been driven by technology and each technological innovation would offer a huge leap in the product innovation. The individual products were very different; all with their own pro’s and con’s. But over time the innovation leaps became smaller and smaller. Up until the point that all the products in the market -even the ones with ‘old technology’ – fulfill almost all user’s needs (early majority, late majority and laggards). They all have webcams, can run all software available (some exceptions) and generally new computers do not add a lot more in terms of functionality.This means that product will have to differentiate in a different way. One of the options is, logically, improving the user experience. This then leads to more investigation in users in general and thus in the claim that some innovations were ‘user driven’.
Furthermore we think that ‘real’ user driven innovation is more along the lines of co-creation. Integrating the user into the design process at early stages as an member of the multidisciplinary design team. Or sometimes in a more shallow way in the form of ‘user-generated-content’ that is responsible for the success of a product. An example could be Dell with their back-end forum. Dell users fora where people can discuss together with dell engineers about new products; this goes further then just user need because they are integrated in the design/discussion.
Another example would be Lego. Since some years Lego has a service called ‘Design by me’ which enables user to digitally build Lego models (nothing really innovating so far) and share them with others. Added to that is the service to have Lego make a building kit out of your model and send it to you; essentially facilitating you to create your own lego set/box. The next innovative step in the system is to make all online build kit publicly available (for viewing and buying) via a Lego social network. If a model is frequently ordered within this social network it can be ordered online as an ordinary -Lego design – Lego building kit. This we think is ultimate user driven innovation since the whole service would not work without the users designing lego models. If you provide the user with the right tools and they will take their part within your brand innovation.
[img]http://www.branddriveninnovation.com/wp-content/Screen shot 2011-11-04 at 19.01.46.png[/img]
Nov 04, 2011 @ 8:02 pm
Group 11
Though user driven innovation has its benefits, it also has its limitations. The biggest limitation is better expressed as a risk. User-driven innovation is based on analyzing users and interpreting that analysis. Here lies the risk to make decisions that are subjective or biased by the designer. When interpreting the analysis wrongly, a faulty design will be the result. Because there is no given road on how to interpret, it is up to the designers how to tackle such an assignment. Every company will interpret the gained data in a different way. The designers must come up with a design that suits both user and the brand.
Another limitation is that people can tell you what they want, but they are often unaware what they really want or they lack the knowledge what is possible. Simply asking the consumer what they is useless, because they do not know what they want(Ulwick , 2002). If the company would just simply make what the user asks for, the user would not be surprised by the design. It is the company’s task and in the companies best interest to take the design to a higher level and unravel the ‘why’ behind the needs, to find out the added value to the needs of the users. The user doesn’t know what the future has to offer and so he/she doesn’t know what their needs will be. Another important thing to consider is how users will change over time; the user of today is not the user of tomorrow, for example in twenty years time, elderly might be totally adapted to touch screens.
Despite these limitations we think it is very useful to listen to the consumer, since it gives great opportunities for NPD and decreases the risk to solve non-existing problems. Luckily, there are many different research methods to conduct customer research, which all have specific benefits and limitations. We think it is necessary that companies master different methods, in order to generate both small product improvements (re-design) as well as to uncover the ‘latent needs’ (for breakthrough inventions), that really satisfy customer needs.
Nov 08, 2011 @ 4:59 pm