Cool technology alone is not enough. If it were, we’d all be riding Segways and playing with robotic dogs.
The third element involves people, and is sometimes referred to as human factors. It’s about deeply understanding human needs. Beyond just observing behaviors, this third aspect of successful innovation programs is about getting at people’s motivations and core beliefs. Human factors aren’t necessarily more important than the other two. But technical factors are well taught in science and engineering programs around the world, and companies everywhere focus energy on the business factors. So we believe that human factors may offer some of the best opportunities for innovation, which is why we always start there. And Doug did too, because GE’s MRI machines already had great technology and business viability. Doug worked to understand how young children perceive MRI machines and what makes them feel safe when introduced to a new experience. Doug’s empathy for his young patients led him to a breakthrough idea and ultimately assured his product’s success.
Being human centered is at the core of our innovation process. Deep empathy for people makes our observations powerful sources of inspiration. We aim to understand why people do what they currently do, with the goal of understanding what they might do in the future. Our first-person experiences help us form personal connections with the people for whom we’re innovating. We’ve washed other people’s clothes by hand in their sinks, stayed as guests in housing projects, stood beside surgeons in operating rooms, and calmed agitated passengers in airport security lines—all to build empathy. An empathic approach fuels our process by ensuring we never forget we’re designing for real people. And as a result, we uncover insights and opportunities for truly creative solutions. We’ve collaborated with thousands of clients to leverage the power of empathy, creating everything from easy-to-use lifesaving heart defibrillators to debit cards that help customers save for retirement.
We believe successful innovations rely on some element of human-centered design research while balancing the two other elements. Seeking that sweet spot of feasibility, viability, and desirability as you take into account the real needs and desires of your customers is part of what we at IDEO and the d.school call “design thinking.” It’s our process for creativity and innovation. There’s no one-size-fits-all methodology for bringing new ideas to life, but many successful programs include a variation on four steps: inspiration, synthesis, ideation/experimentation, and implementation. In our experience, an innovation or new idea may cycle through many iterations before the process is complete.
DESIGN-DRIVEN INNOVATION
Here’s an overview of our approach to innovation, as described by IDEO partner Chris Flink. We adapt and evolve our methodologies continuously, so please feel free to make your own variations, as well, fashioning innovation techniques that fit your unique circumstances.
1. INSPIRATION
Don’t wait for the proverbial apple to fall on your head. Go out in the world and proactively seek experiences that will spark creative thinking. Interact with experts, immerse yourself in unfamiliar environments, and role-play customer scenarios. Inspiration is fueled by a deliberate, planned course of action.
To inspire human-centered innovation, empathy is our reliable, go- to resource. We find that connecting with the needs, desires, and motivations of real people helps to inspire and provoke fresh ideas. Observing people’s behavior in their natural context can help us better understand the factors at play and trigger new insights to fuel our innovation efforts. We shadow and do interviews with a variety of people out in the field. We speak to “extreme users,” for example, discovering how early adopters make clever use of technology. Or, if we are redesigning a kitchen tool like a can opener, we may observe how elderly people use it to look for points of frustration or opportunities for improvement. We look to other industries to see how relevant challenges are addressed. For instance, we may draw parallels between customer service at a restaurant and the patient experience at a hospital in order to improve patient satisfaction.
2. SYNTHESIS
After your time in the field, the next step is to begin the complex challenge of “sense-making.” You need to recognize patterns, identify themes, and find meaning in all that you’ve seen, gathered, and observed. We move from concrete observations and individual stories to more abstract truths that span across groups of people. We often organize our observations on an “empathy map” (see Creativity Challenge #4, Chapter 7) or create a matrix to categorize types of solutions.
During synthesis, we strive to see where the fertile ground is. We translate what we’ve uncovered in our research into actionable frameworks and principles. We reframe the problem and choose where to focus our energy. For example, in retail environments, we’ve discovered that if you change the question from “how might we reduce customer waiting time?” to “how might we reduce perceived waiting time?” it opens up whole new avenues of possibility, like using a video display wall to provide an entertaining distraction.
3. IDEATION AND EXPERIMENTATION
Next, we set off on an exploration of new possibilities. We generate countless ideas and consider many divergent options. The most promising ones are advanced in iterative rounds of rapid prototypes—early, rough representations of ideas that are concrete enough for people to react to. The key is to be quick and dirty—exploring a range of ideas without becoming too invested in only one. These experiential learning loops help to develop existing concepts and spur new ones. Based on feedback from end users and other stakeholders, we adapt, iterate, and pivot our way to human-centered, compelling, workable solutions. Experimentation can include everything from crafting hundreds of physical models for delivering transdermal vaccines to using driving simulators for testing new vehicle systems to acting out the check-in experience at a hotel lobby.
4. IMPLEMENTATION
Before a new idea is rolled out, we refine the design and prepare a road map to the marketplace. Of course, rollouts can vary wildly depending on which elements of an experience or product are involved. Going live with a new online learning platform is very different from offering a new banking service. The implementation phase can have many rounds. More and more companies in every industry are beginning to launch new products, services, or businesses in order to learn. They live in beta, and quickly iterate through new in-market loops that further refine their offering. For example, some retailers launch pop-up stores as a way to test demand in new cities. And Boston-based startup Clover Food Lab began with a single food truck at MIT to gauge the market for its sustainable vegetarian food before the company committed to opening brick-and-mortar restaurant locations.
INNOVATING ROUTINELY WITH DESIGN THINKING
Design thinking is a way of finding human needs and creating new solutions using the tools and mindsets of design practitioners. When we use the term “design” alone, most people ask what we think about their curtains or where we bought our glasses. But a “design thinking” approach means more than just paying attention to aesthetics or developing physical products. Design thinking is a methodology. Using it, we can address a wide variety of personal, social, and business challenges in creative new ways.
Design thinking relies on the natural—and coachable—human ability to be intuitive, to recognize patterns, and to construct ideas that are emotionally meaningful as well as functional. We’re not suggesting that anyone base a career or run an organization solely on feeling, intuition, and inspiration. But an over-reliance on the rational and the analytical can be just as risky. If you have a problem that you can’t analyze easily, or that doesn’t have a metric or enough data to draw upon, design thinking may be able to help you move forward using empathy and prototyping. When you need to achieve a breakthrough innovation or make a creative leap, this methodology can help you dive into the problem and find new insights.