How can innovation be driven by research? This presentation examines the role of ethnographic research in grounding successful innovation in observed user needs.
Presented at the AIMIA Customer Experience Forum
2. “In today’s competitive and
global market, companies are
finding it necessary to deeply
understand their customer
and build their product
accordingly”
Tracey Lovejoy (Microsoft Ethnographer)
3. ... necessary to deeply
understand their customer
• A great customer experience starts with
understanding your customers’:
– Needs
– Behaviours
– Motivations
4. design research helps you do
this
A few common methods
• Focus Groups
• Interviews
• Contextual Inquiry
• Surveys
5. ...and ethnographic research
• Ethnographic Research gives insight
based on observing customers
• What people say and what people do are
often very different
– Example 1: iPod Colour
– Example 2: McDonalds
• Sometimes people don’t know what they
want
6. ok, so innovation?
• The term innovation means a new way of
doing something. It may refer to
incremental, radical, and revolutionary
changes in thinking, products ...
7. ...changes in thinking or products
• Design Research helps show where
unarticulated opportunities exist
• Observe customers and see where current
system breaks down
• Look for the gaps waiting to be filled
8. innovation from observation
• When turned into a solution you see
innovation
• Innovation is not always cool & flashy
• Sometimes solving simple problems in
new ways
9. for example
Whirlpool:
• Pedestal/storage unit for its
Duet front-loading washers
• Came from observing a
woman who had placed her
Whirlpool dryer upon
cinderblocks
• Made it easier to load and
unload it without having to
bend over.
10. ... and
Snow Shovel:
• an award-winning snow
shovel
• was redesigned when
observation found that
women instead of men
were shovelling
• and so they made the
handle smaller.
11. ... and
Bank of America – Keep the Change:
• Round up = quicker, easier
• Need to save
In year 700,000 new checking accounts and
1 million new savings accounts were
opened.
12. Conclusion
• Successful innovation fulfils an
unmet human need
• Design Research helps identify
these needs
• Design Research is about
observing and understanding
your customers
• It’s the foundation for
innovation
Examples: For example, speaker Pam Rogers, who is corporate director of global customer excellence and innovation, explained how the inspiration for a pedestal/storage unit for its Duet front-loading washers and dryers came from observing a woman who had placed her Whirlpool dryer upon cinderblocks, to make it easier to load and unload it without having to bend over. ” Microsoft, Motorola and Intel have trained anthropologists and social scientists on staff. At Motorola, ethnographers found that Chinese businessmen working in rural areas with no telephone service had developed an elaborate system of using pagers to send coded messages. This discovery led Motorola to develop a two-way pager for the Chinese market. For example, an award-winning snow shovel was redesigned when the design team went out to watch how their product was being used, found that women instead of men were shoveling, and so they made the handle smaller.