The Dangers of Design Research

by Idris Mootee

What is design research? It is generally referred to as the upfront contextual inquiry work that designers perform before they start ideation. Sometimes it involves some light ethnographic work and some interviews, but it is often not structured, comprehensive, or rigorous. Design research emerged only in the late 1960s with the goal of improving how we see consumers use the product and look for ways to improve the effectiveness of a product. It is pretty much a human factor investigation and is now widely practiced, but is now facing a few serious challenges.

Design research is more than just a design tool, and the truth is that 80% of the time, they are not designed and conducted properly.

The emergence of transdisciplinary design is changing what skills are needed by those who undertake research design. These required skills go beyond improving a physical product and now include knowing how to build the voice of customer into the design research process, either directly or indirectly. The ability to collect data is not the critical activity, but instead it is the ability to decode visual and non-visual data and translate emergent issues into concrete, actionable insights.

The effectiveness of design research is determined by the research team's ability to translate identified functional and emotional characteristics into unique innovation drivers. Ineffective design research activities are often characterized by the presence of assumptive decision-making, lack of immersion into the consumer's world and undifferentiated innovation drivers. Design research is lesser known than traditional market research among marketers, and they often misuse it as a market research tool instead of applying it as a product development or innovation tool.

Many organizations are only beginning to use an receive the full benefits of design research. Many see it as an unnecessary cost because the people who performed it in the past did not do it justice. Improperly done, many of the presented outputs are useless and unactionable. There are many reasons for this. First, most designers are trained to observe the insights for the purpose of applying them directly to their work, but are poorly trained to codify these insights, while also lacking the writing and analytical skills to make sense of what they see. Second, observation research and individual contact is very consuming, particularly when you need to see them performing non-daily routines. Feeding useful data input into the creative process is a critical skill, one that is an "intuitive learning process." During this process ideas 'evolve' or 'mature' and lead to the improvement of the previous idea.

Design research at Idea Couture is not just an observation exercise; it is often a participatory exercise. I can't talk more to our proprietary methodologies, but they are a lot more than just sending in two designers to learn about how a consumer uses a product. It is not productive to do that. Cross-disciplinary teams perform design research at Idea Couture and consider issues from multiple perspectives - from anthropological to human factors and brand influences. Design research for us is the starting point of reflective collaboration, getting D-School and B-School collaborating to solve wicked problems. It is fun. Designers often like the idea of involving users early and generally hate focus groups. Unfocus groups on the other hand are hard to manage and often discussions get side-tracked. Involving users is always a good idea, particularly when you need to gain a deeper understanding of cultural issues - such as lifestyles and wider issues beyond functional details. This is why you need anthropologists.

It is interesting to see that the contextual inquiry hype has been migrating toward the participatory/designer-led corner of the design research space the last few years as design-led methods such as visioning and storyboarding have been added to contextual inquiries. Finally, a lot of designers have difficulties moderating an unfocus group evaluation for a product idea that they designed, as the personal aspects involved often cause some uncomfortable situations. You can see why design research projects are so difficult to design and conduct properly.


Don't miss a post - Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!

---

Idris Mootee is the CEO of idea couture, a strategic innovation and experience design firm. He is the author of four books, tens of published articles, and a frequent speaker at business conferences and executive retreats.

Fantastically, Brilliantly, Insanely Amazing

by Kevin Roberts

One thing about the January 27th launch of the Apple iPad clashing with President Obama's first State of the Union address was that they both focused on Jobs.

And check out the awesome enthusiasm Steve Jobs and his team have for their new baby in this video!





A lot of hype and hyped-up criticism have accompanied the launch of the iPad. Nothing new there. Apple attracted lots of criticism with the launch of the iPod in 2001 (total sales: 220 million) and the iPhone in 2007 (total sales: 34 million). They centered on a perceived lack of functionality. So it's not surprising to hear gripes that iPad doesn't support HDMI or Flash graphics, or have a built-in camera.

The critics have missed the point. The iPad is not a netbook or scaled-down laptop. In fact, it is only a distant relative to the traditional PC or Mac. Instead, its lineage is the DVD player, the VCR, the television set, the radio, the newspaper, the telephone, the telegraph. It is not a workhorse loaded up with functions and hardware. It is a platform for story-telling, interactive, personal and immediate.

The story of human technology is the relentless advance in the direction of greater utility, connectivity, immediacy, affordability and flexibility. The iPad represents a quantum leap in that direction.

We want to communicate with each other, cheaply and easily. We want information where and when we need it. We want to be entertained and to entertain ourselves. We want to get closer to the people and the things we love. The iPad promises to do that. Technology that fails to serve that purpose is just a gadget, suitable for little more than collecting dust.

There's an interesting blog post in the NY Times predicting that the iPad will become an irresistible toy for children because kids will love the tactile nature of the device (they love to jab at things!), 'painting' software allows for mess-free splatter, it's an ideal distraction for car trips, and the screen offers endless story opportunities. I couldn't agree more, but the author could go even further: They are pretty compelling reasons for adults to get their hands on an iPad, too.

Related Articles:

• Radical Innovation of Meaning


• Apple's Hidden Disruptive Innovation


• Insights to Drive Apple iPad Success


• Will Apple Introduce the Innovation Expected From Google?

Enjoy this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!

---

Kevin Roberts is the CEO worldwide of The Lovemarks Company, Saatchi & Saatchi. For more information on Kevin, please go to www.saatchikevin.com. To see this blog at its original source, please go to www.krconnect.blogspot.com.

Innovation Perspectives - Packaging Up Innovation

This is the sixth of several 'Innovation Perspectives' articles we will publish this week from multiple authors to get different perspectives on 'What product or sector is in desperate need of innovation?'. Here is the next perspective in the series:

by Adam Schorr

While recent years have been a boon for innovation in various industries such as consumer electronics and automotive, the consumer packaged goods industry seems to be stuck serving up warmed over versions of past innovation. But while product innovation in CPG is badly needed, the true innovation crisis in CPG has to do with the fundamental business model. Although the players have been changing due to industry consolidation, the CPG industry continues to labor under a decades old business model whose foundational truths evaporated years ago.

The essence of the CPG business model is as follows: One group of companies manufactures products that are perceived by consumers as significantly better than the alternatives. Over time, these products serve as the backbone for brands that are loved and trusted by consumers and which are relied on as shortcuts to simplify purchase decisions. These companies sell their products to a second group of companies (retailers) who have expertise in merchandising and who, in turn, sell the products to the end users (consumers).

This model worked out well for the manufacturers when two things were true: 1) Their products were perceived by consumers as significantly better than the alternatives and 2) They had the trust and attention of consumers and were able to motivate consumers to go to the retail stores to buy.

Today, these essential truths are no longer true.

With ample contract manufacturing capacity available in the market, private label goods are proliferating. More importantly, a sizable and growing share of consumers perceive private label versions of products to be as good or better than their branded counterparts. Just as troublesome is the fact that manufacturers no longer have the trust and attention of the consuming public which means they cannot influence consumers to go out in droves and shop in retail stores as once they could. In a world where manufacturers are not producing products that are perceived as significantly better than the private label alternatives and where the 30 second commercial no longer holds a mass audience in rapt attention, manufacturers of branded consumer goods are in a very precarious position. One has to wonder whether the role they play in the CPG value chain is still needed. I can assure you that the retailers are asking this very question and are answering it ever more vociferously in the negative.

Sadly, some of the CPG players draw the wrong lesson from their current woes. Some have declared a war on costs, seeking to drive cost of out of their system so that they can reinvest back in their brands. This is an example of trying to play your game harder. Playing your game harder makes sense when success is a function of skill. But success in CPG today is not a function of skill, it is a function of position. The retailers occupy a privileged position on the competitive landscape. They own the shelves and they own the stores in which consumers shop. Trying to win a battle of costs against private label goods is a waste of time. Branded goods will not only lose this battle, they will undercut whatever raison d'etre they still possess.

All is not lost for the CPG community. As always, innovation is the key to success. Branded goods manufacturers need to focus on two things: 1) Knocking the socks off of their consumers with products that are not easily copied. These fantastic products will earn the attention of the consuming public. 2) Finding a way to recapture the relationship with the consumer.

The 30 second commercial is not coming back as a means of building consumer relationships. Brand stewards must leverage new technologies to turn the attention that their products earn into brand loyalty that can deliver financial returns. Once these two fundamentals have been re-established, CPG manufacturers would be wise to re-evaluate the rationale for funneling all of their sales through a channel that has demonstrated robust support for building its own private label business at the expense of the big brands.

The path of meaningful innovation is the only path to success for the manufacturers of branded consumer goods. They can choose to continue tweaking the current model or to seek a new model. One thing is clear: The market will not wait for them.


You can check out all of the 'Innovation Perspectives' articles from the different contributing authors on 'What product or sector is in desperate need of innovation?' by clicking the link in this sentence.

---

Adam Schorr is an experienced innovator and brand manager with a passion for the human soul and its ability to reshape the universe. Adam blogs about innovation, marketing and all sorts of quirky topics at www.adamschorr.com.

CES 2010 Report

by Idris Mootee

More than 10,000 people attended the show, and funny enough there was another show running next door - the Porn Show. I don't know if were are any vendors who showcased products in both. One thing that deserves mention is Nokia's announcement of the Growth Economy Venture Challenge. Nokia is going to invest $1 million in a developer who comes up with an idea that uses mobile technology to improve the lives of people in the poorest parts of the world, and that the idea doesn't even need to use Nokia technology. I wonder if anyone will submit an iPhone-to-save-the-world idea. The winners will be announced in June and it will be very interesting to see what ideas people come up with.

TV technology pretty much dominated the show with 3D HDTV attracting the most interest. I don't think 3D television will become mainstream anytime soon (if at all). Surround sound was first invented and introduced 30 years ago with two key players pushing different standards, I think they were JVC and... I forgot the other. JVC was pushing CD-4, a proprietary decoding technology to bring four-channel surround sound to the living room. The buzz lasted for less than two years. Only after home theater became popular and affordable 20 years later did that technology finally became mass market. 3D HD TV may be a repeat story. 3D content is an issue, the other is the glasses. I cannot imagine everyone wearing 3D glasses at home, can you? And, the cost is way too high. They are at least 5 years away.

The adoption of innovative technologies has always been impacted by micro-economic determinants, because it has proved to be the most useful in explaining the broad patterns of innovation diffusion. With the top three brands announcing 3D TVs, it is more about competing for noise. Panasonic, which has been promoting 3D for more than a year, expects to be among the first to launch. One of Panasonic's guest speakers was Jon Landau, producer of the 3D movie Avatar, which partnered with Panasonic last year to promote both the movie and 3D technology. Samsung announced that 50% of its LED LCD TV introductions this year will be 3D models, many using a new "inspired by nature" design scheme. The top of the line is the ultra-slim 9000 Series. These sets achieve their svelte profiles by housing the TV's electronics circuitry inside the stand and come with a unique touch-screen Wi-Fi remote that doubles as a second display, so you can watch a TV program on the remote while a Blu-ray movie is playing on the TV.

In the meantime everyone is still making improvements to their LCD TVs - making them bigger, thinner and sharper. LG has some cool technology, such as sound coming from the screen, although for most people, this doesn't matter as they have external speakers for that. But still a cool innovation with sound and visual integrated from one source.

And what is the coolest product? I think it is the Parrot AR.Drone, a remote-controlled helicopter with a twist. It's controlled over WiFi from an iPhone or iPod Touch, and it has a camera in its snout that streams to your iPhone's screen. It is perfect for domestic use to send out to survey your neighbors to get a sense of what others are doing. It is great way to increase your conversation capital and popularity. The thing is computer-stabilized so not too difficult to manage and no training required. Not sure if these are designed as little brothers of the military ones. For $500, you can comfortably sit in your home and fly your drone for 15 minutes before it requires recharge. It gives new meaning to "Neighborhood Surveillance". It will be available this fall.

---

Idris Mootee is the CEO of idea couture, a strategic innovation and experience design firm. He is the author of four books, tens of published articles, and a frequent speaker at business conferences and executive retreats.

Innovation Convergence

by Stephen Shapiro

I never really thought much about toothpaste. But at the last two innovation conferences where I spoke, toothpaste was one of the hot topics.

At the FT Innovate conference in London, Unilever discussed their "Signal White Now" (and other brands) toothpaste. Instead of using harsh bleaches and abrasives, they borrowed an optical-effect technology from their laundry team. This toothpaste uses a blue pigment to make yellow teeth instantly appear whiter. This same ingredient is used to make white clothes look even whiter.

At the Open Innovation Summit in Orlando, GSK discussed how their "Aquafresh iso-active" toothpaste borrowed an idea from Edge shaving cream (now a division of Energizer Holdings, Inc). The toothpaste comes out like a gel, but foams in the mouth, much like the shaving cream. This formulation, according to the can I was given, removes 25% more bacteria than regular toothpaste - or 3x more according to the picture on the right.

This got me thinking. If toothpaste manufacturers can get ideas from shaving cream and laundry detergent, where else could they get ideas? Within 5 minutes, I thought up a few ideas of how to gain inspiration from other products:

1. Pop Rocks: As a kid, I loved how Pop Rocks, the carbonated candy, exploded in your mouth. What if you added Pop Rock-like crystals to toothpaste? Not only would the toothpaste foam, it would fizz and explode. Maybe this would blast the plaque off your teeth. Of course, it might blast off your teeth like Pop Rocks reputedly did a few times.


2. Shampoo: Shampoos are infused with vitamins and minerals to give your hair bounce and shine. What if you infused toothpaste with these ingredients? Or maybe you could add some homeopathic remedies - for those who believe in these alternative "medicines." Sublingual administration (under the tongue) is a common and effective way of delivering drugs directly into the bloodstream.


3. Conditioner: We use shampoo to clean and conditioner to protect. Maybe they can create a tooth conditioner; a special toothpaste that you use after your regular toothpaste. It could coat your teeth to prevent staining, bad breath, or split ends. Even better, they could borrow the "technology" used by shampoos like "Pearl" that combine shampoo and conditioner into one formulation.


4. Moisturizers: Several moisturizers have an AM and a PM formulation. One is used in the morning and the other at night before you go to sleep. The AM formula of toothpaste could be infused with caffeine that would be absorbed into the bloodstream sublingually (see idea #2 above). And the PM formulation could be infused with melatonin to help you sleep better at night.


5. Weight Loss Products: I'm not sure how this would work, but what if you could create a toothpaste that somehow made certain foods taste bad? This might cause you to reduce the amount of food you eat. Or maybe there is another way to make toothpaste a weight loss product. OK, this one is a stretch, but there might be a kernel of an idea there!

In a breakout at the Open Innovation Summit, an innovation leader from Johnson & Johnson, when asked to name the most important word for their business right now, answered "Convergence." By this, he meant the sharing of ideas across business units and brands.

Ideas can indeed come from anywhere. And quite often, the best ideas will come from inside your own organization - just from a different product, function, division, or brand. Where will your next big idea come from?

If you have other toothpaste innovation ideas, I would love for you to post them as comments!

---

Stephen Shapiro is the author of three books, a popular innovation speaker, and is the Chief Innovation Evangelist for Innocentive, the leader in Open Innovation.

Hello - The Future is Calling

by Steve McKee

Ninety-eight percent of American households have telephone access. Over the past 130 years, this once-revolutionary device has become so ubiquitous that we don't realize how much of our modern lifestyle has been built around it, from ordering takeout to scheduling doctor appointments, from responding to polls to hanging up on telemarketers. The telephone is something that we - as consumers and as marketers - have always taken for granted.

Not so anymore. Research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now says that for the first time ever, cellphone-only households (20%) outnumber those with landlines alone (17%). And the trend towards wireless is gaining momentum. Nearly one third of 18-24 year olds live in households with no landline whatsoever, and - in a finding that seems odd on the surface - wireless-only households are more likely to include the poor, many of whom made the choice to eliminate their landline bill during the current recession.

This is a radical change with significant implications, not only for pizza makers and Yellow Pages companies, but for all marketers. Among the new dynamics:

• The telephone is no longer a device tied to a household, but to an individual. That opens up a world of personalization, from packaging (my wife's cell phone cover is pink) to performance (my daughter has a different ring-back tone for the weekend than the one she uses during the week) to pricing (there's a payment plan to suit just about everyone's needs).


• The telephone (and the telephone number) is no longer a place-based device. Marketers that once relied on area code information to determine the location from where a customer was calling now can't be so sure, as members of our increasingly mobile society take their cell numbers with them wherever they relocate.


• The telephone is no longer just a telephone. Two-way voice communication has now given way to multiparty, multimedia (and even satellite) access, making the ability to speak to someone on the other end just one rather quaint feature. You may even be reading this blog on your phone.

Most of us are content to let the Apples, AT&Ts, Motorolas and Verizons of the world think about where this once single-purpose device should go next. But as my firm has discovered in working with clients in a variety of non-telecommunications categories, we can't be content to let the future come to us.

With each technological advance comes new obstacles and new opportunities, and brands that pause to consider how they might leverage them are likely to find competitive advantage (and in some cases completely redefine the playing field).

Do you suppose there's an iPhone app for that?

---

Steve McKee is a BusinessWeek.com columnist, marketing consultant, and author of "When Growth Stalls: How it Happens, Why You're Stuck, and What To Do About It." Learn more about him at www.WhenGrowthStalls.com and at http://twitter.com/whengrowthstall.

Decreasing Standard of Living, Increasing Profits

We are at an inflection point in the developed world, and the fate of your standard of living rests either in the your own hands (if you are an entrepreneur) or in the wisdom (or lack thereof) of a few key politicians.

The question is will the direction be up or down?

Economic factors in our newly globalized world dictate that individuals in lesser developed countries like China and India will experience rising wages and an increasing standard of living while individuals in the developed world experience flat or declining wages and standard of living in a race to the middle.

This began happening some time ago, but has been buried under a pile of easy credit.

Housing costs have increased, food and fuel prices are surging upwards along with commodity prices as demand grows faster than supply. Meanwhile, real wages are declining. Sounds like a depressing situation, right?

Well, all is not lost. If we can't avoid the inevitable decline in the developed world, then as individuals--and even as states and nation--we can seek to slow its decline or reverse the trend completely.

How do we do this?

As states and nations, we must invest in improving our ability to efficiently provide the basics, while at the same time reducing our demand for scarce commodities.

Our businesses must move from being product-led or even customer-led organizations to maintain their lead by transforming into innovation-led organizations that can move faster than competing organizations overseas with lower costs that seek to copy their innovations.

As individuals we can either go along for the ride as employees and hope that our government and business leaders make these adjustments faster than foreign competition, or help to lead the charge as entrepreneurs.

The entrepreneurs among us must recognize this new reality in the world and identify ways to profit from it. We must uncover the new or amplified business and consumer pains and the solutions to them. These truths will exist across the developed world and thus will scale for entrepreneurs or businesses bold enough to pursue them internationally.

What does this look like you might ask?

Well, one example would be satisfying the need for consumers to increasingly downgrade from restaurants to other types of less-expensive prepared foods when time is scarce. UK supermarkets like Tesco and their ready meals offer a great example that could be replicated in fast-paced American cities like New York, Seattle, and San Francisco.

Another would be exporting used American SUVs to take advantage of their rapid repreciation in the era of $4 gasoline to places that benefit from the weak dollar and/or lower fuel prices.

There are a million more ideas and innovations out there for people to find and put to work even as developed economies crest.

So are you going to let this new wave pummel you or are you going to find a way to ride it?

That answer is up to you...