Innovating better products or services is not as hard as it looks

Innovating better products or services is not as hard as it looks

It’s no secret that innovation is a driving force for businesses today. Every company in every industry knows they must innovate or be left by the side of the road. But, without a defined framework for innovation, many companies can’t take advantage of this opportunity.

Simply put, Design Thinking helps companies quickly identify, build and test their way to success. It can be applied throughout an organization, from product management and strategy to customer service and user experience.

What’s stopping you?

Some organizations do things simply because “that’s the way they’ve always been done.” Whether a business faces hurdles with inflexible management, a change-resistant culture, or merely the fear of something new, innovation takes a team effort. Getting everyone on board is essential for success. Design Thinking needs all hands on deck to create innovation that makes a difference.

Deliver the right experience at the right time

You don’t need flip-flops in a snowstorm. Design Thinking helps you understand your customers’ needs and then helps you create an experience that delivers exactly what they want—when they want it. Creating an environment of innovation helps your business design the best ways to interact with your customers.

The five key principles of Design Thinking allow you to create ideas and test them even before they reach your customers. These are the steps that drive business building opportunities in products, customer service or problem-solving throughout an organization:

1. Empathize

Empathizing with your client or customer is where the magic begins. Does your customer want it in red but you only offer yellow? Is the user experience confusing potential buyers and sending them scurrying to your competition? Have you engaged in a meaningful two-way conversation that helps you understand everything they need?

Empathy can be as simple as changing the functionality of a drop-down menu. It can also be as complex as distilling local, regional and cultural differences in markets around the globe. Listening is key. For a recent project, we collected over 3,000 quantitative survey results to drive our innovation. Being consistently empathetic in Design Thinking helps your organization start smart and finish stronger.

2. Define

Based on everything you’ve learned by empathetically listening to your customers’ current issues, you can define and reframe a problem based on their practical and emotional needs. It’s the ideal time to gather all the information you have and determine the exact problem you’re facing.

What did you learn when you spoke to clients and customers? What patterns are you noticing? Who can you bring together to help you address the problem? Embracing diverse opinions can help you get a wide view of potential solutions, but the real opportunity comes when you can create a platform for diverse ideation the next step in Design Thinking. It works. By defining new ways to innovate and enhance our global translation service, we were able to save $2.6 million.

3. Ideate

Yes, there are bad ideas. But, those are the ones Design Thinking helps weed out early. Have individuals and teams work both together and independently to innovate and create new approaches, but make sure you draw from the strengths of each person or group. Customer service can share issues with UX teams. Marketing and Sales have a distinct perspective that might benefit IT.

Make sure you get all the obvious ideas out of your heads early. Then, let the ideas flow fast and furious. Ideation’s ultimate goal is a solution. But, remember, you may be able to test several potential solutions in the prototype phase. One result of our Design Thinking let us save us nearly $2 million with the accelerated release of one of our customized mapping products.

4. Prototype

Creating a usable prototype of anything—a physical product, new software, an enhanced mobile app or refined online checkout system brings your best ideas to life. You can learn a great deal from very simple prototypes, so don’t obsess at making it “perfect.” Clients, customers or anyone who will interact with your prototype will give you specific feedback during the Design Thinking testing phase. The ability to test ideas with clients sooner helped us reduce our development and prototyping time by up to 50 percent.

5. Test

Will it fly or will it flop? You’re about to find out. Testing lets you receive feedback about your prototype in a “real” context with your ultimate users. It also offers the chance to refine your solutions and make them better. The most important part of testing is your ears. Listen to everything said about your prototype, as well as the questions they may have. It’s another chance to be empathetic and let your user become a partner in the process.

Develop a “fail fast” system test early and often while challenging your new approaches from every angle. Gather insights together as a team, learn from your mistakes then repeat the process. Instead of a slow roll-out, our “fail fast” system helps us release products on or ahead of schedule, even to 12 markets simultaneously. was rated a “superior experience” ahead of two other solutions, including our key competitor.