Every major producer of products or services fears disruptive forces in the marketplace. No industry is immune from these forces including healthcare, telecommunications, financial services, education and retail. Equally vulnerable are company leaders such as Facebook and EBay -- need I mention Blockbuster or Blackberry? Why is disruption inevitable? Can it be predicted? Can it be avoided? This presentation examines the predictable path traveled by disruptive products or services. I will examine the characteristics of the disruption (compared to the dominant product or service) and the economic conditions allowing it to gain a foothold in non-mainstream markets. Participants will follow the lifecycle of the disruption as it slowly migrates upstream from the fringe to the primary market where it eventually challenges the dominant technology or service. I will then present a clear case of how a strategy of continuous innovation in the mature organization can actually pre-empt the disruptive event. What does all of this mean for user experience organizations? Traditionally, we have devoted all of our efforts to optimizing today’s products, with little attention directed to tomorrow’s offerings. We leave this work to others in the organization. Who said that innovation is the exclusive domain of MBAs, engineers, and marketers? I will build a strong case for UX professionals having a seat at the “innovation table.” Quite simply, who is better positioned to deeply understand the unmet needs, values, limitations and abilities of our users? Similarly, who is better positioned to transform those insights into design innovation? Naturally, innovation requires changes in the way we think and work. This presentation will conclude by outlining necessary accommodations in our research methods and encouraging the use of “design-thinking” practices to creatively explore the innovation landscape.

1. Experience Inspired Innovation:
The Forth Wave of User Centered Design
Bill Gribbons, Director UX Programs
Founder, User Experience Center and
Bentley User Experience Studio
wgribbons@bentley.edu
Bentley University
June 2014
© 2014, WM Gribbons

2. Why Innovation?
© 2014, WM Gribbons

3. Three Quick Stories
or “learning the hard way”
• Video conferencing
• Job search
• Retail check-out
© 2014, WM Gribbons

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9. The Innovator’s Dilemma
• Innovation advantage is shorter and shorter
• Resistance to change in the marketplace
• The art of managing this tension
Innovation
Future
Market
Conditions
Resistance
To Change
those that hold you back today will leave you tomorrow
© 2014, WM Gribbons
Costumers resist innovation
until the day they want it

10. Disruptive technology
The Art of Managing Innovation
Incremental
Next
Big
Thing
Product or Service Maturity Life-Cycle
Optimizing processes
Maximizing revenue
Lower profit requirements
Initially different markets
Eventually move up-market
Traditional UX role
© 2014, WM Gribbons

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Disruption or Innovation?
Actively pursue the value trail and identify unmet need….
Could newspapers have anticipated Craig’s List?
Could Blockbuster have anticipated Netflix?
Should Blackberry have anticipated the smartphone?
Could the music industry have anticipated i-Tunes?
Should Apple have anticipated the popularity of streaming music?
Should higher education be anticipating what is coming next?
… and recognize that the trail is constantly shifting

12. © 2014, WM Gribbons
The Role of UX:
Can you look to the user?
“If I asked people what they would have wanted, they would
have said a faster horse.”
Henry Ford
“People don’t know what they want until you show it to them….”
Steve Jobs

13. Traditional product design thinking…..
• Breed a faster horse
• Design an improved nutrition program for horses
• Develop an enhanced exercise routine for horses
© 2014, WM Gribbons
“If I asked people what they would have
wanted, they would have said a faster horse.”
Henry Ford

14. Innovative thinking…
reframe the problem
It’s not a faster horse people were looking for ---
It’s….
Faster
© 2014, WM Gribbons

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Re-framing the Problem
• Listen different
• See different
• Think different

16. Inspiration
the adjacent possible….
“What can Big Med learn from the Cheese Cake
Factory?”
Atul Gawande, New Yorker, 2012
© 2014, WM Gribbons

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Did this observation inspire
this innovation?

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Legos
Scotts
Discovery Channel
Disney
Lexus Dealership
McDonalds
Moving “outside the box”

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Maintain a reflection
tablet – idea book
• Leonardo’s Codices
• 16th-17thc Commonplace book
• Evernote and the like
Where do I begin…….

20. Intersection of UX and Innovation
Deep Understanding
Of
Human BehaviorUnderstanding
Enabling
Technologies
(e.g.. Social and
gamification
Re-defining
Problem
Space
UX
in
Product
Management
Ideation
&
Design
Thinking
Field Research
And
Ethnography
Lean
Start-up
Movement
Distribution of Resources
We must move some
of our resources to UX R&D
independent of current product
development
© 2014, WM Gribbons