Discussions about innovation and end users for products and services often include some mention of a now famous adage typically attributed to Henry Ford which goes something like “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.” The attribution to Ford has been questioned by Patrick Vlaskovits who did a bit of investigating and could not find any evidence the Ford actually made the statement. Nevertheless, it is a great starting point for thinking about how we might conduct research on user ideas to inspire innovations.
The faster horses quote raises questions about the wisdom of end users and about the advisability of using them as a direct source of ideas for innovation. Disputes regarding the faster horses claim often come down to an argument between those who favor input from users as important information for innovation and those who believe that creative people should bring their own ideas for innovation in the face of users who might just ask for more of what they are accustomed to having already.
A first-stage compromise on this conflict between the wisdom of users and the wisdom of designers (or more recently design-thinkers) can be seen in efforts to understand or empathize with users. This approach seeks value in the documented lived reality of users as a basis for developing creative solutions, but it locates the largest share of agency with those playing the role of innovators. Approaches of this nature are popular with the increasing number of professionals who have acquired formal training and even credentials to conduct such work.
An alternative approach is to engage the user, or more typically the community of users, in collaborative processes where conditions might be more conducive to the co-creation of innovations. In this approach a great deal of effort is devoted to establishing conditions in the social and physical environments that allow users to think deeply and then to share their ideas in forms that can be captured for later use in the design and development process.
While the co-creation approach highlights the potential for expanding the number of individuals contributing to innovation and progress beyond professional groups, it also offers a stark contrast with what seems to be the continuing degradation of the processes for seeking wider input. Increasingly, efforts to seek input amount to little more than online surveys or polls that are conducted under unknown conditions where the goal seems to be speed and ease of data collection at the expense of an opportunity for thoughtful participation. Is it any wonder that the most common response under these conditions is a request for faster horses?
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