Product innovation through a Service Design lens
“The lines between hardware, software, and services are blurred or are disappearing”
The quote from Tim Cook represents a dynamic that will result in a shift from feature focused innovation to service based innovation, a move from technology-centric IoT to human services.
We've all turned our noses up at the disconnected promises of refrigerators that order eggs and cheese when sensors identify the need. The premise of responsive machine intelligence as a guiding strategy is sound, but focus on technology based innovation paired with user trend data is what leaves consumers non-responsive. Corporate initiatives driving feature innovation without user deep user insight.
The risks are high for organizations that activate or roll out strategic initiatives based on business triggers that have ignored emergent organizations or network externalities, but it’s not unusual for entities to be blind to their own systems biases. That’s why it’s crucial to have R&D processes that incorporate external factors within a human-centric practice at the planning stage and throughout design.
As an Experience Strategist / Design Lead I see the failure in organizations of all size at the product or service design stage. That’s the typical inflection point when the “help us fix this” calls come.
The solution to understanding the true needs and insights is a user-centric strategy and design, customer experience innovation and product development informed by Service Design will drive organizational change.
User empathy and Service Design within the R&D process is the key to breaking the rut of feature obsessed innovation