Technology-driven Innovations May Not Be All Bad

As an Apple veteran, I understand that is not always helpful to ask users what innovations to go build because it does not always result in an earth-shattering, inventive solution that meets their needs. Marketers who have learned from Steve Jobs do not look for mainstream user validation to identify the next new thing.  Don Norman, a noted User Experience expert, design professor and former Apple fellow, further explodes the myths around need-driven innovation in his post, "Technology First, Needs Last."

He writes, "Major innovation comes from technologists who have little understanding of all this research stuff: they invent because they are inventors. They create for the same reason that people climb mountains: to demonstrate that they can do so. Most of these inventions fail, but the ones that succeed change our lives." In supporting this perspective, Norman goes on to show the evidence by pointing to revolutionary innovations like the telephone, radio and the Internet that changed our lives but came from the minds of inventors of new technology, not end users.

In his debunking of the myths perpetuated by designers, researchers and marketers, Norman has made some controversial statements to drive home a core insight for businesses in this difficult economy: research matters most when the consumer understands the concept and can refine it.  While social anthropology provides useful insights around consumer behavior, even advanced influencers generally start with tools that already exist in their lives. They may evolve how they use these tools to service new purposes or capabilities.  But technologists often erect the original framework for consumer-driven innovations to occur.

The problem for business today, though, is that R&D budgets to nurture big inventions have been hit hard as companies struggle to maintain revenue and grow profits. Social media gives marketers and designers more immediate access to feedback that looks actionable, and costs less than market research did just a few short years ago. Consumers can point to iterative improvements that can trigger a design or process innovation that can save companies money or increase loyalty and satisfaction. But inevitably this feedback leads to improvements that can be characterized as cheaper, faster, easier than existing solutions.

We'd all agree the ideal outcome would be that a statistically relevant group of mainstream users would be able tell you the same original thing they need you to go build. Then they'd put their money where their mouth is by purchasing it. But, of course, if it were that easy, every product from every company would be a game changing innovation like the photocopier, fax machine, CD, web search, DVR and cell phone.

The conclusion I'd draw from Norman's post is that companies need to enable both types of innovation - revolutionary and evolutionary. And they must understand where the consumer's insights are going to lead them. Technology exploration may lead to "crazy applications" which the market may reject initially as impossibly impractical. But from that invention's failure can come the most valuable consumer contribution for an innovator - the practical clarity of what not to do the next time.

Update on Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 9:02PM by Gearhead Gal

In a recent interview on American Express's Open Forum site for small business, Scott Cook, co-founder of Intuit, addresses the value of consumer research in creating surprising and delightful experiences. Intuit leans heavily into these insights when developing a customer point of view in the discovery phase of product design. It's worth noting that the two examples he provides of the Intuit "Design for Delight" philosophy in action revolved around how small businesses were adapting to Quicken's accounting tools, which were already available on the market, and how TurboTax simplified the act of preparing and filing tax returns online.

"We don’t pursue customer surprise as a goal or outcome. That can backfire in our specific arenas. We pursue confidence, because it’s such a big part of delight. Delight is defined simply as a customer being happier than they expected to be with one of our products or services. We organize around delight, the goal being to have a customer be wowed about how confident they are in the solution."

If your goal is consumer confidence in a solution, than staying close to your customers in order to discover how new ways to be delightful makes sense. If your goal is to lead a customer to a ground breaking capability they can't imagine, then the value of customer insight may be in understanding how to make a new and different experience both surprising and delightful.

"Customer delight is often in the details, but to find those opportunities we go broad at first, and that allows us to then go narrow and focus on a possible solution."

When consumer confidence and acceptance is essential to mainstream adoption, being surprising may not delight.