home

Gathering important input for new product development

When creating, developing and marketing new innovative products it is critical to have the best input possible. Knowing what to develop is an important start, getting there is the challenge. That’s why we have to have input that is actionable. We have to be able to do something with the user input we gather that will help us convert our intents into results.

User-centered development

One of the most traditional tools for capturing input is the user-centered approach. By observation and interviews the development team attempt to capture unmet user needs. The input from the user-centered approach is varied,  almost always subjective and of debatable quality for further action.

jobs as benchmark

If we instead investigate the jobs users are trying to get done, we can develop a system of actionable and verifiable outcomes. The benchmark for success is measured by the degree with which we help users do the intended jobs and complete their tasks. You can’t ask a user about a product that doesn’t exist. You can ask them about the jobs they need to get done. Which makes more sense?

taking action

When we first investigate the particulars of the job we want our products and tools to achieve we have a way to couple benchmarks and expectations to physical products. This outcome driven approach feeds into the development pipeline by by adding input that is useful as well as verifiable.

rational decisions?

While outcome driven innovation focuses on the jobs users hire products to do, design appeals to the emotions and to the senses. How do we assimilate these two worlds, the rational and the emotional? Enter outcome driven design.