Your users as a source of innovation.
What is User Innovation?
If innovation investments are to yield desired results, they need to respond to consumer needs. And this is getting more difficult. With the rise of the internet and increasingly global markets, consumers are met with seemingly unlimited choices. We no longer buy what we see, but rather seek out what we want to buy. And, increasingly, companies are providing ways for us to “do it ourselves”. Sophisticated consumer demand is an important driver of innovation.
To sustain a competitive edge, more focus must be given to meeting users’ needs…and not simply those explicitly stated in market research – but rather those latent user needs which can be revealed by alternative analytical methods, and by the users themselves. This is what user-driven innovation is all about – determining a more systematic way to understand and develop solutions that respond to user needs.
There are several common features of this type of innovation which differentiate it from other types of innovation, as well as from traditional product development methods. These features include:
| Feature | Implication |
| A strategic focus on consumer pull (vs. technology push) | Producing what sells, rather than selling what is produced |
| Revenue-enhancing activities (vs. cost-cutting activities) by developing solutions that better meet consumer needs | Investing more skills, energy and resources on understanding consumer needs and developing solutions that are more specifically targeted to meeting these needs (often resulting in increased product introductions) |
| Use of multiple skills and perspectives in the innovation process (e.g. adding ethnologists, anthropologists and designers to the scientists, engineers and business specialists) | Combining not just the technical and business skills, but also incorporating competencies in a wide range of other disciplines (and knowledge from users in related industries) |
| More direct involvement of the user/consumer in the innovation process | Either through observation processes, toolkits, user panels, or letting them do it themselves |
| Requirements for an open and collaborative business environment | Flexibly-structured companies and environments that allow for increased usage of ‘open-source’ and multi-disciplinary methods |