Innovation is what moves the world forward. Innovation is what treats illness, protects everyone from danger, makes life easier, more efficient, and more enjoyable. However the innovation does not just happen, it takes a catalyst – one of the most robust catalysts for innovation is design. It drives an idea from a simple insight to a tangible, marketable product or service. The design provides the focus and structure that innovation needs.

The Role Of Design In Innovation?

The role of design in innovation is the utilization of a designer’s methods and sensibility to address the customer’s needs. Along with this design-driven approach, a good business strategy and technology are used to create both market opportunity and customer value.

Why Does Innovation By Design Work?

One of the major steps of innovation by design is engagement with customers. Prototypes are created, tested, and then refined. This is a must to do because it minimizes the risk of product or service failure.

Companies learn what consumers want, what they like, and what they will refuse to purchase. These insights which can’t be effectively gained from methods like market research or historical data are essential for designers.

A true and deep understanding of consumers created a competitive advantage that gives companies higher margins and better customer loyalty. This is the part of the design process that ensures profitable, popular, and revolutionary innovation.

How To Implement Design in Innovation?

Design in innovation can be implemented in eight simple steps:

Discover: This is the first step where the search starts. It is time to find out what customers’ unavailable needs are. The best place to start by choosing a specific niche, area of interest and gathering data.

Reframe The Topic: Once you have a topic or idea, you need to look deeper and find deep insights or patterns that you can. Forget any assumptions you may have about any particular problem or solution to previous problems and reframe your point of view.

Ideate: This is when the seed of an idea begins to boom. This is the time to discuss all the possibilities about your idea.

Refine: When you have collected all the ideas, it is time to look them in the deep and figure out what is possible and what is feasible. This is where much of design comes into play. 

Test: Once the idea is decided on, the company should start talking to customers. Find out what your customers think and how they would respond to that service or product. Build prototypes and try them out.

Launch: Once the product or service is tested and refined, it is time to get approval and launch it.

Improve And Scale: When the product is available to the public, the team should get feedback and improve it. At this point, it can be scaled up.

Final Thought

Design is one of the most critical components of creating killer innovations. By incorporating a design-driven approach into your innovation processes, you can create stronger and more successful solutions for your customers.