Addressing Users Needs to Get Your Product to Market First
To quickly develop and apply innovative technology that will improve the world, you must first discover the 'true' user needs.
Understanding user needs quickly and effectively is the key to driving innovative product development. Discovering the "true" needs that address the way end users must interact with a product or service to derive useful benefits plays a vital role in creating innovative product concepts, services and business strategies. In order to speed up the product development cycle, a process must be implemented that can rapidly define those needs and develop solutions.
Designing a product from the onset based on clearly defined user needs, rather then assumed needs, helps to avoid costly roadblocks and untimely redesigns later in the development process. It also serves to create an agreed upon group goal or project focus. No matter the market, the methodologies discussed in this article can apply to almost any product development situation with a critical need to quickly address user benefits and value.
Societal trends - a user needs assessment commonly considered in product design - acts as an early "stimulus" to focus potential (technology) applications and serves as a jumping off point for creating many ideas. When combined with additional methodologies to form the following process, the identification of user needs (versus assumed needs) can be a springboard for efficiency in product development and future innovation.
Identifying User Needs
User needs are most valuable when identified before traditional product
development takes place and are the most beneficial in what the
industry calls "Phase Zero" - an early engagement period or the usually
nebulous beginning of a project engagement with a client that typically
occurs before any concrete issues, directions or even project scope is
clearly defined.
This first "Phase Zero" step in the product development cycle - before any design or engineering work begins - is to take a much broader view of the relationships between a product's practical function and how the user relates that function in an environment of use. By uncovering and then understanding unmet needs, the idea or product concept is fleshed out earlier than in traditional product development processes, allowing for greater innovation potential to happen.
The obvious timesaving achievement is in the establishment of a clear path for the rest of the product development cycle rather than just taking the seemingly "fastest" path, which does not address user needs. Without this users assessment, it's quite possible that at some point in the development process you will find that you have a product that cannot be sold or used and one with which you will have to go back and do an untimely and/or costly redesign.
Key Steps in the Process
Early on, unknown possibilities resident in a technology need to be
qualified. The exploration of many innovative paths in which the
technology could possibly see market applications is encouraged.
Typically, numerous lucrative product possibilities emerge from such
activity. But how is this path creation stimulated? A structured
process must be followed in order to ensure that the necessary
variables are addressed. A collaborative effort is undertaken by expert
groups of development professionals, industry specialists and actual
users.
The creation of this cross-functional, multi-profession team and engaging it under highly strategic conditions quickly inspires creativity. A range of activities created to solicit a spectrum of viewpoints stimulates the generation of ideas. Following a process guides the team to establish ideal parameters for the project, thus eliminating potential roadblocks that in the long run will add more time to achieving the end result. Organization is critical in the collection of these ideas and leads to timesavings in the development cycle.
The following outline is a sample proposed process that achieves these goals of organization, innovation and time savings. Each level of the process is explained, in detail, to enhance understanding of the necessity of the step.
A suggested outline for user needs discovery includes:
- Pre-Immersion - Establishing the scope and goals.
- Immersion - Brainstorming.
- Discovery - User needs drive development.
- Strategy - Planning what's next.
- Product embodiments - Offering a saleable view.
- Transition to product development.
Establishing the scope and goals for the immersion/brainstorming session is the first step in the process. Without a clearly defined objective from the onset, time can be wasted within the collaborative sessions debating the goals at hand. Understanding the target user groups, the desires of the client and the needs of the project to quickly elicit the type of information needed are necessary in outlining the objective. In-depth discussion solely with the client is critical prior to the start of the group brainstorming activities in establishing scope. A thorough understanding of the client's initial goals for the product is vital in determining the make-up of an expert group. Budgets are established at this time as well. Once the broad scope is clarified, the necessary experts are contacted for their availability and the potential nature of their contribution. Pre-immersion also includes preparation of materials to be used during the sessions.
Immersion - Brainstorming
Brainstorming is a key element in deriving user needs. In bringing
together a versatile group of experts, you elicit a meeting of the
minds. A "no rules"-based idea flow is encouraged and is enhanced by
the fact that the issue at hand is approached from different points of
view. A resultant time saving may occur from multiple viewpoints
revealing possibilities and potential problems from the inception of
the project that may not have otherwise been exposed until too late in
the development cycle (as in the case of a single view scenario).
The brainstorming sessions are designed to allow the exploration and elicitation of user needs by creating scenarios in which archetypal target users react to a "life altering" event or events (dynamic scenario development). The diverse team perspectives of these reactions will eventually spawn a variety of possible solutions to rectify the hypothetical event. Preliminary features and benefits possibilities based on concluded user needs are derived from these results. The developer now has a plethora of options to consider and evaluate.
At this point, the ideas captured must be narrowed down to determine the key considerations in determining and reacting to true user needs. The team must now mature the scenarios and systematically address the meaning and nature of each idea. This brings us to the discovery phase of our product development process.
Discovery - User Needs Drive Development
Additional sessions are held in which the matured scenarios are
revisited. They are grouped and then evaluated for their usefulness -
for now or in the future. The stories are mapped against a user's
profile in order to stimulate solutions for the determined needs. A
more concrete features and benefits view of the product in design
appears to develop.
The results of a user needs experience are creative product embodiments of breakthrough ideas that can be used for product/ service feature planning, product "platforming," line extensions and in creating product/service families. Product development time sees reduction by the probable elimination of problematic results or the inability of an idea to adequately address the need at hand. An added benefit is the assessment of development ideas (user needs) for future opportunities (perhaps a supplement to the product), thus allowing for decreased development time for those projects.
Strategy Planning - What's Next
Several issues must be addressed in determining "what's next" in the
design of the intended product. The conclusions must be evaluated with
regard to costing, technical feasibility of the idea, what product
features are critical, user priorities, competitive product/service
feature analysis, segmentation and product platforming. All of these
decisions must be made in order to understand and identify a clear path
for transition to traditional product development. Many of the initial
product scenarios will quickly be eliminated based on their inability
to hold a clear role within the infrastructure of the prospective
product. The possible avoidance of future product inadequacies can
result in additional time saved in product design. Once the direction
(true user needs) of the product has been determined, it is time to
give "life" to the ideas.
Product Embodiments
The purpose of product embodiments (see Figure 1)
is to offer an exciting "saleable" view of how quickly user needs can
be translated to product innovation concepts. They can be used to
further validate an idea's value.
Product embodiments can realize themselves in various forms:
- An illustrated book containing the finalized ideas in scenario/ sketch form.
- A set of "storyboards" to simulate the ideas in context.
- User "interfaces" mockups.
- A video with "real life" enacted simulations of the ideas in use.
- Appearance models, environments and actors can be used to simulate true reality.
- Functioning prototypes.
Transitioning to Product Development
At this stage, the selected ideas are ready to transition to
functioning prototypes, focus testing, or to be put in front of real
users or to be incubated as an infant business opportunity to garner
venture funding. Once the product concept has been clearly defined and
all issues and requirements have been addressed - strategically and
tactically - a true product specification is developed and the product
can enter traditional product development processes to get it to market
quickly. The shortened time-to-market has been enhanced by the
avoidance of potential roadblocks that possibly could not have been
caught without the needs assessment and the knowledge that an
inherently better product will be developed.
Conclusion
Collaborative insight into user needs early in product design, captured
in a structured and organized fashion, can be highly instrumental in
saving time by the avoidance of product redesign. Deriving user needs
quickly and effectively drives innovative product development.
From an initial client inquiry to product visualization, it is important to keep one eye focused on reality and one eye looking to the future. The constant assessment of user needs implications can lead to early product design success. The key is in getting the right people and experts from different disciplines, and deploying them in the process of quickly targeting and uncovering unmet, latent and known user needs.
Ultimately the expertise of this group can be as valuable as months of user interviews. And the combined brainpower of the group will certainly derive innovative approaches in a timelier manner. The impact of methodology in which timelines are established, dates adhered to, processes consistently "driven" and follow-up done in a prompt manner will ultimately lead to time compression.
For more information contact Larry Barbera, an innovation consultant, former director of innovation and industrial design at Battelle Healthcare Products (Columbus, OH) or via the company's website at www.healthcare.battelle.org.
