User - Centered Innovation : The Interplay between User - Research and Design Innovation

User information is an important source of user-centered innovation. Through the investigation of 47 user-centered case studies collected from leading design consulting firms, this study aims to establish the relationship between user-research and design innovation, to identify the research characteristics and analytic models critical to each innovation situation, and to discuss where, why, and how the research and analysis should be done so that information is gathered efficiently and is available to the team at the right time in the multi-disciplinary design process. This study suggests new approaches to user-research planning, an alternative mental model of design innovation, and a different way of describing user-research in relation to design innovation. The investigation reveals how user-research should be planned, conducted and tailored for each innovation situation. 0. Overview User information is an important source of new user-centered product ideas (of what should be designed), which has the potential to redirect a company’s technology capabilities toward an entirely revolutionary innovation. While a new idea is a thought about something new or unique, and making that idea real is an invention, innovation is an invention that has a socioeconomic effect; innovation changes the way people live. As Alan Williams (1999, p.14) stated ‘While creativity is finding, thinking up, and making new things, innovation is doing and using new things.’ Having recognized the primary importance of understanding how people interact with design, many user-research methods are borrowed from the social sciences: sociology, anthropology, and psychology both to measure how people perceive, understand, remember, and learn in design evaluation process (Preece, 1993), and to understand, credibly explain and perhaps predict human behavior in the pre-design process (Karat, 1997). While understanding current human behaviors is a goal of social science research, design requires the application of such understanding, turning it into innovation. Thus, designers struggle with the methodological implications of conducting user-research to support early phases of design. This study aims to better understand the relationship between user-research and design innovation and identify where, why, and how the research and analysis should be done so that information is gathered efficiently and is available to the team at the right time in the multi-disciplinary design process. 1. Innovation Innovation is critical to companies’ long-term growth and renewal. Recognition of the challenge of adopting new technologies into business growth is pervasive. The Industrial Research Institute (IRI) conducts an annual survey of its members. In 1998, ‘making innovation happen’ was rated the top challenge facing technology leaders. The IRI annual survey also indicated that its counterparts in Australia, Brazil, Korea, Europe, and Japan also rated ‘ making innovation happen’ at either the top or near the top of the list of the biggest problems facing their technology leaders (Leifer, 2000). The relationship between business growth and innovation is widely understood by executives today as has been written by a number of consultants and business scholars such as Richard Foster (1986), James M. Utterback (1994), Clayton Christensen (1997), and Richard Leifer (2000). These authors agree that incremental innovation can keep the company competitive with current platforms, but only radical innovation can provides a platform for the long term growth that corporate leaders seek. Proceedings of The European Academy of Management 2 Annual Conference on Innovative Research in Management EURAM , Stockholm, Sweden, 2002 Scholars have long distinguished between what Christensen (1997) calls sustaining and disruptive technological innovations, although not always in those words. For example, James March (1991) made a distinction between exploitation of existing technology and exploration of new technology. Leifer (2000) places innovations into two categories: incremental and radical innovation. In addition, he further distinguishes 3 types of radical innovation with respect to alignment with the firm’s established lines of business: 1) Innovation within the technology/market domains of existing business units, 2) Innovation in the ‘white space’ between a firm’s existing businesses, 3) Innovation outside a firm’s current strategic context. Along the same line in relation to design, John Heskett (1997) proposed four design innovation strategies to be decided by the organization in any given situation. The strategies include: no change, incremental detail change, radical redefinition of basic concepts, and fundamental innovation. According to Heskett, design projects usually begin with business objectives, which fall into one of the four innovative strategies, based on market situation, a company’s willingness to spend and capability to innovate. 2. User-Research and User-Centered Design Key to innovative design is an understanding of the user. It is an important source of new product ideas (of what should be designed), which has the potential to redirect a company’s technology capabilities toward an entirely revolutionary innovation. In the past, directions for design development were based on marketing research, which limits innovation to its evolutionary form. Because traditional marketing research builds upon opinions of current experience and already present technologies, it is generally unhelpful for design that is not tied to a familiar consumer paradigm. Recently, a few forward thinking companies started deriving their design directions from userresearch, which helps uncover unarticulated or emerging user needs. User-research methods in design are borrowed from the social sciences: sociology, anthropology, and psychology both to measure how people perceive, understand, remember, and learn in the design evaluation process (Preece, 1993), and to understand, credibly explain and perhaps predict human behavior in the pre-design process (Karat, 1997). Within the history of behavioral research in design, user-research has been classified according to information resources, human senses (Rubin & Elder, 1980), and research applicability (Aldersey-Williams, Bound, and Coleman, 1999). Liz Sanders (1992) proposed five categories of product development research methodology: observation, classification, conversation, description, and participation. The five categories are a mix of data gathering techniques, user’s participation, and analytical model. Later, Jay Melican (2000), in his doctoral dissertation at the Institute of Design, proposed dimensions of classification including: analytical approach (conceptual vs. procedural), degree of abstraction (raw vs. abstract), degree of generalization (individual, social/organization, cultural), model of collection (observing, listening/discussing, participating), media of delivery (verbal, visual, tactile), and position of privilege (privileges the subject, privileges the researcher). Particularly for the classification of the analysis areas, Beyer and Holtzblatt (1998) proposed five analytic models including: flow model, sequence model, artifact model, cultural model, and physical model. The five analytic models are also related to Spradley's (1980) nine major dimensions of social situation, Pena’s (1969) framework for information gathering, Owen’s (1989) Structured Planning, AEIOU framework for observation, which was developed by the Doblin Group, a consulting office in Chicago and Chayutsahakij’s (2001) analysis matrix. One of the objectives of this study is to understand how different types of user-research are conducted and applied in each innovation situation. It is necessary to develop user-research classification in a way that is meaningful to this study. Based on the previous approaches (discussed above) and expert interviews, two sets of semantic scales were developed in order to discuss research characteristics and analytical models critical to each innovation situation. The two semantic scales are further discussed in 4.2 and 4.3. Proceedings of The European Academy of Management 2 Annual Conference on Innovative Research in Management EURAM , Stockholm, Sweden, 2002 3. Research Methodology The understanding of user-research and innovation relations and how user-research can be managed comes primarily from in-depth analyses of 47 user-centered case studies. During the field research, in-depth interviews were conducted with key individuals in 24 leading design research and consulting firms over a period of 3 months. The interviewees included researchers, project managers, directors and CEOs. The cases include consumer products, communication devices, web interfaces, furniture, hi-tech digital solutions, product platform strategy, and strategic design. The participants in this study were all intensely interested in finding ways to conduct and use user-research effectively. All cases were self-reported as successful and favorites of the interviewees. Each interview was recorded and later transcribed. The interview data composed the information database from which findings were derived. Recognizing patterns of user-research used in different innovation situations, the ‘Design Innovation Model’ was developed as a framework to better understand the user-research characteristics and analytic models critical to each situation. The characteristics of user-research and the analytic models used in all the innovation situations are then compared on the semantic scales, and discussed regarding where, why, and how the research and analysis should be done so that information is gathered efficiently and is available to the team at the right time in the multi-disciplinary design process. 4. Results and Discussion The relation of user-research and innovation is discussed in 3 aspects: user-research roles, user-research characteristics, and research analytic models critical for each innovation situation. 4.1 The Role of User-Research in each Innovation Situation There has been no investigation establishing the relations between innovation and user-research used in design. From literature review, immersion, observation, case studies, expert interview, and intensive analysis, the userresearch usage pattern is highly associated with 4 major innovation situations combining variation on technology and market. According to the finding, the ‘Design Innovation Model’ was developed as a framework to further explain the relationship between user-research and design innovation. The 4 quadrants of the ‘Design Innovation Model’ represent 4 design innovation situations including: Situation Inew technology for new market, Situation II-new technology for known market, Situation III-known technology for new market and Situation IV-known technology for known market. Also through intense research, two major concerns of design innovation were found. The diagonal dot line on the ‘Design Innovation Model’ separates 2 major concerns: A-usability concern (above the dot line) and B-symbolic concern (below the dot line). This section will discuss the nature of each innovation situation on the ‘Design Innovation Model’ and its relations to previous approaches including Heskett’s innovation strategies: fundamental innovation, radical redefinition, and incremental innovation (excluding the imitation strategy, where design goal setting is not applied), the classifications proposed by Christensen (1997) and Leifer’s (2000) discrimination of innovation: incremental and 3 types of radical innovation with respect to alignment with the firm’s established lines of business. Known Market New Market