Design: A Better Path to Innovation

Shedroff, N., Design: A Better Path to Innovation, Interactions.15 (6), 35-41. New York: ACM

35. While engineers and designers have an innate appreciation for appropriate and significant innovation, most businesspeople still need to be convinced because of the risks involved and because it's not an easy thing to do.

36. Innovation can take several forms:
better offerings and experiences, better processes, better organizations

38. (Natural Capitalism) Sustainability is the successful management of 4 kinds of capital:
Financial Capital, Manufactured Capital, Natural Capital, Human Capital

Why is sustainability important to all organisations? Because we no longer have the luxury of ignoring it.

39. All organizations need to address how their strategy intersects with sustainability.

Besides being a business imperative, Sustainability is a source of tremendous opportunity.

Challenge most organizations struggle with is in differentiating novel innovation from meaningful innovation. Meaning is the most powerful aspect of customer experience. It can transcend traditional and 'rational' price and performance decisions. It surrounds all products, services, and events, whether we acknowledge and address it or not. And it can be the most effective guide in determining whether an idea or solution is truly valuable and not merely 'new'.

41. Design-led innovation has an edge on other approaches because of its history of user-centered research, prototyping, critique, iteration, and embracing of constraints.

Unlike other development processes it makes room for meaning and other questions to be addressed before requirements are solidified.

The entire concept of design can be described as the prcess of meaningful innovation.

6 Dimensions of Experience:
Breadth, Intensity, Duration, Triggers, Interaction, Significance

5 Levels of Significance:
Meaning (Reality), Status/Identity (Values), Emotions (Lifestyle), Price (Value), Function (Performance)