What is the Role of Human Centered Research in Innovation?
Innovation, defined as a new idea, device or method, is accomplished only through more effective products, processes, services or technologies. It is measured in terms of short term goals, activities and deliverables. Financial success in the marketplace is the ultimate imperative and measure.
For financial success, the idea, concept or a method cannot remain as something on paper or for conversation purposes only. It needs to translate into a product that can be built, implemented and used efficiently. It should be a product that can bring change and deliver business value. This value should be measurable. Only such a tangible product that can be measurable will determine real financial success and value.
Marketing Research, Sales Research, Technology Research, User Experience Research – you have heard it all.
Marketing Research focuses on the gaps that exists in the market. It provides a proper understanding of the market and links the producer to the customers and the end users. Particularly, it provides the customer’s point of view and realistic idea of consumer needs and wants.
Sales Research focuses on gathering information on whether a product can generate sales and helps determine wins, losses and decisions that drive a prospective customer.
Technology Research focuses on the product execution- its feasibility, functional and non-functional requirements and requisites for the development life cycle so that what is proposed as a concept can be translated to a product.
To make sure that such ideas and products really address the gap in a way that is beneficial to the user, User Experience research comes into focus.
User Experience Research focuses on providing a holistic experience, validating functional and non-functional requirements for the end user and focuses on creating business value. It compliments Technology Research.
While some argue that anyone can design, creating the right concept that can be built and delivered calls for the right balance of highly specialized research, design and technology team expertise. Any such idea or concept that is created without the right form of research will remain exactly what it is – an idea or a collection of ideas, never a product; in short, the wrong design for the current business context.
Disciplines like Design Thinking, Human-Centered Thinking etc. present the unique opportunity of putting together people from multiple disciplines into the same room alongside subject experts. However, the question is whether organizations truly and optimally utilize these methodologies to benefit the business. As Prof. Peter L Jackson of Cornell explains in his book, Getting Design Right – A Systems Approach, getting a design right is the process of avoiding design flaws. Any process or research that gets design wrong is a waste – of money, energy, time, creativity, and resources.
