It looks like I am not the only one reacting strongly to Roberto Verganti’s dissing user-centered innovation.  I discussed it with a couple of folks, including Tim Kastelle who did an excellent job of putting his finger on what's wrong with Verganti's message.  Yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as going too far and Verganti jumped the shark on this one.

It all started when I read Verganti's post entitled User-Centered Innovation is Not Sustainable.

Oh, Calm Down

I discussed it with several people and one of them told me to calm down—this was just a case of "going a bit far to make a point, but that's what authors often need to do."

I also sent a DM to Tim Kastelle and he said he'd think about it and might post about it later.  A few hours later Tim did post an excellent analysis of it and put his finger on exactly what is missing from Verganti's message: empathy! (for users).

I strongly recommend that you read Tim's post on Empathy-Driven Innovation.

What's Bugging You?

Twice in his post, Verganti clearly excludes users and customers.  First he says (in bold in the original),

Only forward-looking executives, designers, and, of course, policy makers may introduce sustainable innovation into the economic picture.

Just in case, the reader didn't get it the first time, he repeats his admonition (emphasis added),

Only leaders and designers who are driven by a vision and who explicitly search a priori for those sustainable behaviors can tune out the unsustainable needs of 99% of users and focus on the few exceptions.

OK, so maybe he was just exaggerating to make a point, but the problem is that Verganti's a pretty influential guy (after all, the post appears in the Harvard Business Review blog).  People will read this and take it as an excuse to completely leave out users and customers.  "I'll just have to be like Steve Jobs."  That struck me as regressive.

It was not that long ago that, particularly in technology products nobody paid attention to users and engineers built whatever was technically feasible.  I know whereof I speak.  So long as engineers built products for other engineers, this worked fine but as these products crossed into the mainstream that attitude no longer worked.  User-centered design was a necessary addition to the art.

I understand the point about not being completely limited by customers' "behaviors and how they use existing products."  I also agree that focus groups are downright counter-productive when it comes to truly innovative products (and in many other cases as well).  They've been overused to the point of harm.  But that only means that you have to find other ways to involve users.

Find a Way (to Include All Stakeholders)

For example, we've used Luke Hohmann's Innovation Games to involve users in innovative product designs for our clients.  A couple of these games are meant specifically to involve users in the innovation process—to discover what we don't know that we don't know,

• Me and My Shadow to identify customers' hidden needs
• Give Them a Hot Tub uses outrageous features to discover hidden breakthroughs

And to Tim's point

• The Apprentice to create empathy for the customer experience

And this is just one example of tools that can be used to keep users involved throughout the innovation process.

User-Centered design can and has been used as an excuse to delay and even kill innovation.  Granted.  But this doesn't mean that we now need to take the user out of the picture, except "within the framework of a vision-centered process" created by gifted visionaries.  We need to find innovative ways to include users in the process.  As Tim advises,

Design-driven innovation can’t just be based on intuition alone. It has to be anchored in empathetic understanding of the people that will respond to your proposals.

Like my friend said, I should probably take a deep breath and give Verganti the benefit of the doubt.

I just wanted to add some balance to Verganti's advice.

How about you?  What was your take on Verganti's post?  How about Tim's view?  I'd like to hear your view in the comments below or in this LinkedIn discussion.