User-Centered Research

Will was first exposed to user-centered research by the team-members he hired into the Innovation incubator (iHub) he helped found inside GM. He found the research and its output really hard to grasp, but compelling. In the effort of understanding better, he asked tons of questions and slowly started to get how it worked. After finding out the employees they were supporting were also struggling, he pushed the iHub team to make their own user-centered method that was, well, more user-centered (less confusing, more linear and clear). What resulted melded Design Thinking with Lean StartUp, Agile and other business innovation systems and came to be called 'The iHub Way'. It was better than the straight Design Thinking method, but not yet a guided system.

Then along came the Covid shutdowns and things got interesting...because Will had been taught that user-centered research could only be done in-person! He thought his days of being able to do this research for his job were over...but he had a boss that encouraged him to build an 'all-virtual' user-centered system: which is exactly what Will did!

In case terms like 'Design Thinking' or 'user-centered research' are confusing you, then just think about this technology as a way to understand what it is you want, irregardless of whether it appears to be possible or affordable.

And yes, the word 'you' is intentional: if leveraged correctly, design thinking research will reveal what we all want: and that all falls under the term 'desirability'.

Being confident on what is desirable throughout the journey of developing a:

1. 'feasible' (the effort of working through issues re: the laws of physics), and,

2. 'viable' (can an affordable solution be developed? can it make a profit when sold?) 

solution is critical to ending up with a meaningful and successful product or service in the world.

It's that simple!  

User: This term includes the customer and anyone else that will come in contact with the product or service being provided. It also is a reference to the fact that the goal of user-centered research is to generate a person that has an excessive attraction to interacting with the product/service (like a drug addict would...for an example of this, watch how young people interact with their mobile phones). 

User-Centered: This is the seeking of understanding of what is and will be desirable by all of humanity. 

Design Thinking: A user-centered research method created by a partnership between MIT and Stanford. Stanford took this method and commercialized it in their d-School consultancy.