Categorizing user pains, usage situations and existing solutions in front end of innovation: The case of smart lighting project
Year: 2017
Editor: Anja Maier, Stanko Škec, Harrison Kim, Michael Kokkolaras, Josef Oehmen, Georges Fadel, Filippo Salustri, Mike Van der Loos
Author: Bekhradi, Alexandre; Yannou, Bernard; Cluzel, François; Vallette, Thomas
Series: ICED
Institution: 1: CentraleSupélec, Université Paris-Saclay, France; 2: NOVIA swk, France
Section: Design Methods and Tools
Page(s): 533-542
ISBN: 978-1-904670-92-6
ISSN: 2220-4342
Abstract
Companies make substantial R&D investments in early design stages to develop radically innovative products. However, despite abundant research work in the field of human-centered design, the front end of innovation is the least well-structured part of the innovation process. Radical Innovation Design (RID) methodology has put forward a structured process aiming at exploring, organizing and categorizing required knowledge to design a useful problem in the form of value buckets (i.e. overlooked problems of users) to be evaluated. In this paper, we aim at reinforcing the knowledge acquirement process in parallel with the problem design process to fine-tune the firm’s R&D strategies, and to increase the likelihood of successfully reaching the mainstream markets.The contributions of this paper are twofold: i) to provide a set of knowledge acquisition rules in front end of innovation; and ii) to specify a set of problem design guidelines mainly by introducing a tool called Dependency Structure Modeling (DSM)-Value bucket algorithm, which enables a systematic identification of value creation opportunities. The example of a smart lighting project is analyzed in this paper as a case study.
Keywords: Innovation, Design methods, Early design phases, Knowledge exploration, Radical Innovation Design