Shared by Pecanha
Muito bom para se pensar sobre o assunto Ariel Guersenzvaig, who knows me well and understands my take on user-centered design, refered me to Apple’s Secret? It Tells Us What We Should Love, an article that questions UCD as a tool for radical innovation. I’ve been moving from true believer in UCD to these positions over time and, although I think it’s easy to use Apple as an example, I consider this article by Roberto Verganti full of true statements: User-centered innovation is perfect to drive incremental innovation, but hardly generates breakthroughs. In fact, it does not question existing needs, but rather reinforces them, thanks to its powerful methods. Firms that create radical innovations make proposals. They put forward a vision. In doing that, of course, they take greater risks. Thanks to this process these companies are serial radical innovators. Their non-user-centered proposals are not dreams without a foundation. Sometimes they fail. But when they work, people love them even more than products that have been developed by scrutinizing their needs. User centered-design (observation, interviews, user testing, etc. ) is for those who want to improve something existing, not for those who want to create something new. Those need to understand human nature but don’t need to microscope every little behavior and take it as a starting point.
