by Karel Vredenburg (Originally published January 2016)
In this post, IBM’s Director of Design, Karel Vredenburg, explains how companies are falling into what he terms as “the innovation trap”, or the belief “that innovative ideas will just come to you.” However, Vredenburg suggests the need for a more focused, user research, approach. To do this, one must observe and gather insights from the user of the product to target “pain points” or problems.
“First of all, innovation is in the eye of the beholder. Only when the intended user of what you’re producing considers it amazingly helpful, engaging and indispensable will it be deemed innovative. So, instead of focusing on being innovative, focus on what problem you should solve or what opportunity to improve something you’d like to address. But how do you go about doing that? You close your MacBook, get out of the building, and start to observe, listen, and probe.”
Once problems are identified, possible solutions can be explored through a structured ideation session with a diverse group of people, generating multiple ideas and iterations which can be honed through feedback and teamwork to produce viable, innovative solutions.
To read the full post on Karel Vredenburg’s blog, please click here.