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I came across this TED Talk today by Malcom Gladwell called “What we can learn from spagetti sauce”, which I thought was wonderful and I wanted to post it here. Basically, it illustrates why there is no single über-product which will make all of your users happy. People are diverse by nature, so why would one single type of product match them all?
It also reminded me that some time ago during a marketing course I followed for my bachelor, I had to read this fantastic article by Anthony W. Ulwick called “Turn customer input into innovation” (I know, I know, not the most creative of titles, but a good one nonetheless), and I’ve been wanting to share it here for quite a while, so I also uploaded a copy of it.
In a nutshell, Ulwick shows us how customers have no idea what kind of new products they actually want, so trying to ask them these kind of questions during surveys, focus groups and such in order to innovate your company’s product portfolio is futile. The common user is not prepared to take it upon him to generate ideas for new products, as most of them lack the knowledge to fully understand the problematics of a certain domain, and as such the only suggestions they will come up with are among the things that they already know and that they can relate to. A quote by Henry Ford illustrates this point wonderfully: “If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have asked for a faster horse”.
So it is up to researchers (and in our case, design researchers) to understand the customers needs and come up with the right product for them. Yes, ask input from your customers, but dont ask them what kind of products they want. Instead, focus on what they would like to achieve and what their goals are, and use this information as a basis for your design process in order to find the right solutions.
For those wanting to read the article, you can find it by following the link below:
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