What?
Design Innovation
Tim Brown, 2005Where you innovate, how you innovate, and what you innovate are design problems.
Innovation is driven by three forces: business, technology and people.
- Business investigates the viability of new products or services;
- Technology explores the feasibility of new products or services;
- People judge the desirability and usability of new products or services.
Venn diagram from Institute of Design at Stanford.
New innovation occurs at the intersections. For example, process innovation might occur at the intersection of business and technological innovation. Functional innovation between technology and people creates the interfaces we use to interact with technology. Marketing innovation occurs between businesses and people, enabling branding and emotional connections.
Design innovation occurs in the "sweet spot" in the middle. Design innovation only occurs by understanding and anticipating the needs of your users and creating successful products or services that fulfil their desires. This in turn creates competitive advantage for your organisation.
Understanding your end user is key to achieving design innovation, and the process to get there is design thinking.