It can be perilous to adopt an “if you build it, they will come” mentality. Too often, organizations jump straight into ideation and prototyping without understanding whom a product is for or what problem it is solving. The Accidental Design Thinker shares warning signs and pitfalls of this approach, as well as tips for avoiding this common design thinking misstep.
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If you build “it”, will they come? Maybe, but very possibly not…
In my experience managing marketing and innovation teams within Fortune 500 companies and smaller organisations, I’ve found this question inevitably crosses the minds of most innovators, marketers, and entrepreneurs.
While the answer depends on a case-by-case basis, your odds of success are significantly higher if you know whom you are building for and the target need you are addressing. Design thinking can serve as a powerful mindset that ensures you’re consistently building solutions with a targeted end-user and compelling problem to solve in mind.
For design thinkers, securing deep empathy for customers/design targets and identifying a compelling problem to solve may seem like obvious first steps. However, all too often organisations borrow from Kevin Costner’s movie Field of Dreams and adopt an “if you build it, they will come” mentality.
The allure of a shiny prototype with all the bells and whistles can be powerful and blinding to even the most well-intentioned of leaders.
Do any of these symptoms of the “if you build it, they will come” mentality sound familiar?
Starting a project with:
Dealing mid-project with:
Skipping the Empathy & Define stages of design thinking results in ideations without a clear objective. This approach will yield triangle- and circle-shaped prototypes whilst your customer needs squares.
Without clear empathy for your design target or a well-defined problem to solve, it becomes difficult to evaluate ideas, concepts, and prototypes. There is no set evaluation criteria and feedback becomes a matter of individual preferences.
This approach is painful for all teams involved. Teams swirl in uncertainty with the lack of an up-front strategy. Perhaps you go far down a commercialisation path, develop a product, build marketing plans, initiate production, only to realise you’re chasing a dream not based on a real customer or a true user need.
Worst case scenarios for short-cutting the front-end of design thinking can range from expensive product failures to companies going out of business. Consider the following two cases of Juicero and the Sinclair C5:
Juicero, maker of the beautiful $400 (USD) home-juicer that raised $120MM (USD) in funding, only to fail spectacularly in 2017.
Juicero started with a compelling yet general consumer problem that people do not consume enough fresh produce in their lives. The company developed a beautiful cold-press juicing machine with single-serve juice packets ($5-7 USD per packet) to address this problem. The proposed benefits were many, including convenience (speed/minimal clean-up) and great taste vs. other at-home juicing options.
However, Juicero made some critical missteps on the Empathy front. It developed a product without a clearly articulated end-user market (or more specifically, the founder built the product with himself in mind). Without a specific design target, it was likely difficult to gauge whether this juicer would adequately address consumer needs.
A greater upfront focus on Empathy would have likely surfaced critical shortcomings of the Juicero machine well before it launched. The machine’s hefty price tag, reliance on Wi-Fi to operate, and ability to only use proprietary juice packets (which were later discovered to be squeezable by hand, thus not requiring the machine), would have been flagged as unacceptable by customers, and Juicero could have avoided the perilous path that ended with its demise.
Sinclair C5, the single-passenger electric vehicle produced by Sinclair Vehicles in 1985; a founder’s product vision that lacked both a clear end-user and the right problems to solve
The Sinclair C5 was the brainchild of English entrepreneur Sir Clive Sinclair. Originally marketed as an alternative to cars and bicycles, the C5 was an eye-catching electric tricycle with a host of proposed benefits ranging from less pollution to not requiring users to have a driver’s license or wear a helmet.
However, the Sinclair C5 suffered from the same pitfalls as the Juicero machine; not enough upfront focus on consumer empathy or target problem identification. According to the director of the Primary Contact advertising agency (responsible for promoting C5 at the time), the C5 went all the way to the prototype stage “purely on the convictions of Sir Clive.”
While the C5 addressed some consumer problems, it introduced even bigger ones. Whereas the C5 may have been an eco-friendlier vehicle, there were significant concerns about its safety, durability, performance and handling. These are table stakes vehicle attributes that a greater upfront focus on Empathy and Define would have helped to surface as critical to product development.
Production of the C5 ultimately ceased just months after it had launched.
Before ideating & prototyping, make sure you can answer these basic questions:
If you can’t answer these questions, you’re flying blind with a strategy built on hope and luck. Make the conscious investment to take a step back and answer these questions; it will save you lots of time and heartache in the future.
Don’t become a case study like Juicero or the Sinclair C5. If you need to influence others on the importance of nailing Empathy and Define, share these stories to bring to life the pitfalls of skipping these critical steps.
A bias to action and an emphasis on design-doing are important, but not at the expense of shortcutting or omitting the front-end of the design thinking process. Resist the powerful urge to jump straight to ideation and prototyping. The future of your business may depend on it!
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