Spark Innovation

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what customers can't tell you might be just what

you need to develop successful new products.

SPARK INNOVATION

T H R O U G H

EMPATHIC DESIGN

BY D O R O T H Y L E O N A R D A N D JE F FR E Y F. R A Y P O R T



A LMOST EVERY COMPANY COMPETES to s o m e de gr ee on th e b a si s of c o n ti n u

Jx innovation. And to be commercially successful, new product and servic

ideas must, of course, meet a real-or perceived-customer need. Hence th

current managerial m antras: "Get close to the custom er" and "Listen to the voic

of the custom er." The problem is, cus tom ers' ability to guide the development o

new products and services is limited by their experience and their ability to imag

ine and describe possible innovations. How can companies identify needs tha

customers themselves may not recognize? How can designers develop ways t

meet those needs, if even in the course of extensive market research, customenever mention their desires because they assum e those desires can't he fulfilled

A set of techniques we call empathic design can help resolve those dilemm a

At its foundation is observation-watching consumers use products or service

But unlike in focus groups, usability laboratories, and other contexts of tradition

al market research, such observation is conducted in the customer's own enviro

m en t- in the course of normal, everyday routines. In such a context, researche

can gain access to a host of information that is not accessible through othe



S PA RK I N N O V A T I O N T H R O U G H E M P A T H I C D E S I G N

The techniques of empathic design-gathering,analyzing, and applying information gleaned fromobservation in the field-are familiar to top engi-neering/design companies and to a few forward-thinking manufacturers, but they are not commonpractice. Nor are they taught in marketing courses,being more akin to anthropology than marketing

Sometimes, customers are soaccusLomed to current conditionsthat thev don't think to ask fora new solution.

science . In fact, few com panies are set up to employempathie design,- the techniques require unusualcoUahorative skills that many organizations havenot developed. Market researchers generally usetext or numbers to spark ideas for new products,but empathic designers use visual information aswell. Traditional researchers are generally trainedto gather data in relative isolation from other disci-plines; empathic design demands creative interac-tions among m embers of an interdisciplinary team.

Developing the expertise, however, is a worthy

investment. Empathic design is a relatively low-cost, low-risk way to identify potentially criticalcustomer needs. It's an important source of newproduct ideas, and it has the potential to redirecta company's technological capahilities towardentirely new businesses.

When Questions Don't Yield Answers

when a product or service is well understood, tradi-tional marketing science provides amazingly so-

phisticated ways to gain useful information frompotential customers and influence their purchasingdecisions. Consider how subtle are preferences ofsmell and sound, yet car manufacturers can designautomobile interiors to evoke the specific scent ofexpensive leather that U.S. buyers expect in a lux-ury vehicle. Nissan Design International testedmore than 90 samples of leather before selecting 3that U.S. noses preferred for the Infinity )-30. Simi-larly, manufacturers are adept at fine-tuning en-gines so that they make the preferred sounds associ-

ated with surging power and swift acceleration.Harley-Davidson, in fact, has sued competitors that

ears. Customers can guide an auto or motorcmanufacturer in making even minute adjustmin its offering because they arc familiar withproducts and have developed over time a fihoned set of desires and perceived needs. In factdriving experience is so deeply ingrained that can re-create most of the needs they encou

while on the road even when are not actually in the driver's

The practices of traditional keting science are also effectivsituations where consumers arready familiar with a proposed stion to a problem hecause of texperiences with it in a diffecontext. Peel-away postage stawere an innovation that customcould comprehend because they

already encountered the light adhesives use

Post-it Notes and peel-away labels.

But sometimes, customers are so accustomecurrent conditions that they don't think to aska new solution-even if they have real needs could he addressed. Hahit tends to inure us toconvenience; as consumers, we create "warounds" that become so familiar we may fothat we are being forced to behave in a less-toptimal f ashion-and thus we may be incapabtelling market researchers what we really want

For example, when asked about an editing ftion in a software package, one customer hadcom pla ints -un til she sat down to use the progin front of the observer. Then she realized thawork was disrupted when the program didautomatically wrap text around graphics whileedited. Accustomed to working around the plem, she had not m entioned it in earlier intervi

Market research is generally unhelpful whcompany has developed a new technological cbility that is not tied to a familiar consumer p

digm. If no current product exists in the mathat embodies at least the most primitive form

Dorothy Leonard i.s the WiUiam J. Ahernathy Prof Business Adm inistration at tbe Harva rd BusSchool in Boston. Massach usetts. Her teaching, reseand consulting focus on creativity, innovative knedge managem ent as a core capability, and new-prodevelopment. Her book Wellspr ings of KnowleBuilding and Sustaining the Sources of Innovationpuhlished in 199S by the Harvard Business School PJeffrey F. Rayport is an associate professor of bu

adm inistration at the Harv ard Business Sc hool. Hsearch focuses on the impact on new information



SPARK INNOVATION THROUGH EMPATHIC DESIGN

rst introduced in the early tw enti-

es was the "radio m usic box " born. Sarnoff had

didn't know it was feasihle.

So there are many reasons why standard tech-

cep ts. It is extrem ely difficult to design an in-

nts' tend ency to try to please the inquirer by pro-

The people who des ign surveys , run focus

lts by inadv ertently - and inevitably - introd uc-

tom er's needs are solicited in writing or through

eem confused at any point? What unspo ken

You can easily get that sort of feedback by w atch-

information that cannot be gathered through traditional marketing or product research.

Triggers of Use. What c ircum stanc es prom pt people to use your product or service? Do your customers turn to your offering when, and in the wayyou expected? If they don't, there may be an opportunity for your company.

Consider what Hewlett-Packard learned in thearly 1990s by observing u sers of the HP 95/10 0 LXseries of personal digital assistants (PDAs). Thcom pany allied itself with L otus De velopm ent Corporation to produce the PDA mainly because i tproduct developers knew that their "road warriorconsumers valued the computing power of Lotu1-2-3 spreadsheet software. But when HP's researchers watched customers actual ly us ing thproduct, they found that the personal-organizesoftware the com pany had also licensed from Lotuwas at least as important a trigger for using thePDA as the spreadsheet w as.

When the makers of Cheerios went out in thfield, they found that breakfast wasn't necessarilythe primary purpose for which certain householdwere using the cereal. Parents of small childrenthey found, were more interested in the fact thathe pieces could be bagged, carried, and doled ouone by one as a tidy snack anytime, anywhere tooccupy restless tots.

And when the brand mana ger for a spray-on cook

ing oil saw his neighbor using the product on thbotto m of his lawn mo wer, he discovered an entirelyunexpected trigger. Pressed to explain, the neighbopointed out that the oil prevented cut grass fromadhering to the bottom of the mower and did nharm to the lawn. Such unanticipated usage patterns can identify opportunities not only for innovation and product redesign but also for enterinentirely new markets.

Interactions with the User's Environment. Howdoes your product or service fit into your users' ow

idiosyncrat ic sys tems-whether they be a household routine, an office operation, or a manufacturing process? Consider what Intuit, maker of thpersonal-finance software package Quicken, leafnthrough its "Follow Me Home" program, in whichproduet developers gain permission from first-timbuyers to observe their initial experience with thsoftware in their own homes. Intuit , of courselearns a good deal about its product's packagingdocumentation, and installat ion from this exercise, as well as about the user friendliness of it

software. But it can gather that kind of informationin a usability laboratory. What Intuit can't reliabl




software applications are running on that cus-tomer's system and how that software can interferewith or complement Quicken's own operation.Moreover, product developers can see what otherdata Hies the customer refers to and might wish toaccess directly, what state of organization or disar-ray such files are in, and whether they are on paperor in electronic form. It was from such in-home oh-servations that Intuit designers discovered thatmany small-business owners were using Quickento keep their books.

Some small changes that can result from watch-ing people use your product in their own environ-ment can also be competitively important. Whenengineers from a manufacturer of laboratory equip-ment visited a customer, they noticed that theequipment emitted ahigh level of air pollutionwhen it was being used for certain applications.

That observation motivated the company to add aventing hood to its product line. Current users wereso accustomed to the unpleasant smell that theyhad never thought to mention it and didn't regard a

venting hood as an important enh anc em ent-u ntilit was available. Then the company's sates forcefound the hood to be a compelling sales point whencustomers compared the product with those ofcompetitors.

User Customization. Do users reinvent or re-design your product to serve their own purposes?

Producers of industrial equipment observed userstaping pieces of paper to their product to serve asidentifying labels. The manufacturer gained an in-expensive, but appreciable, advantage over thecompetition when it incorporated a flat protectedspace for such machine-specific information intoits next model. And every Japanese automaker hasset up adesign studio insouthern California be-cause fanatical car owners there are prone to modi-

Observers saw people combiningbeepers and cell phones not toanswer calls but to screen them.

fying their cars, often substantially, to meet theirparticular desires, be they functional (more cargospace, larger engines) or ego-intensive (spoilers,special wheels, new colors). Observing these users

helps designers at Nissan and Toyota envision thepotential evolution of specific models-and gives

Sometimes, users combine several existing pucts to solve aproblem, not only revealing uses for traditional products but also highlightheir shortcomings. A prominent producehousehold cleaners handed video cameras to famem bers to record how its products were reallying used in people's basem ents. The company could see homemakers concocting their

recipes for particular household chores, sucwashing white curtains ("one cup baking soda,cup dishwashing detergent," and so on].

Similarly, in the course of studying consummobile-communication needs, consultants aChicago-based Doblin Group, observed individcreatively combining beepers and cell phonethey could be just as available as they wishedno more. These consumers gave special becodes to friends and relatives to screen out usired interruptions. That suggested to the firmneed for filtering capabilities on cell phones.

Intangible Attributes of the Product. What kof peripheral or intangible attributes does product or service have? Customers rarely nsuch attributes in focus groups or surveys,those unseen factors may constitute a kind of etional franchise-and thus an opportunity. Wwatching videos ofhomemakers using cleanand detergents, representatives of the househproducts company could see how often the sm

the products evoked satisfaction with the ir usegendered feelings ofnostalgia ("My mother this") or elicited other emotional responses ("Wit smells clean, it makes all my work worthwh

Such intangible, invisible product assets caaugmented, exploited, or redirected. After visthe homes ofKimberly-Clark customers, cotants at the Palo Alto, California-based designGVO recognized the emotional appeal of pu

diapers to parents and toddlers,saw them as a step toward "grup" dress. Diapers were cloththe observers real ized, andhighly symbolic as well as funcal meaning. Huggies Pull-Ups rolled out nationally in 1991, anthe time competitors caught oncompany was selling $400 mi

worth of the product annually.

Failing to note such intangible attributesink a new product, Environmentally friendly that clean washer loads of clothes without d

gents have yet to attract amass market-in part, according to the Doblin G roup's observat




Unarticulated User Needs. The application of

encountering problems w ith your prod-

and may not even recognize as problems.

uld clearly be beneficial?A product developer from Hewlett-Packard sat inperating room observing a surgeon at w ork. The

the pa-

couple at the side of the road wrestling the backseat of a competitor's minivan out of the way sthey could pick up a new couch. "We bought thiso we would have room," they told him, "but wcan't use it for what we want without taking outhe seats." They would never have thought of asking for any solution to their problem, but one im

mediately occurred to Hirshberg-six-foot runnerthat would enable van owners to fold up the backseats and slide them out of the way, thus easily creating cargo room .

t's body and his own hands displayed on a tele-

periodically obscure th e surgeon's view

a few inches in front of the sur-

ht to ask for it, even though its potential

the surgeon's work easier was substantial.

Unarticulated needs abound in daily routines,

Weyerhaeuser won an important advantage ithe market for particle board after observing a

unarticulated need during a visit to a customerplant. The customer, a major furniture maker, created table legs by laminating together narrowhoards produced by some of Weyerbaeuser's competitors. Unable either to match the competitorprices or to convince the customer to pay higheprices for superior quality, Weyerhaeuser insteacame up witb a new way to make table legs -a newmuch thicker particle board tha t did not have to blaminated. The consequent savings to customerin tooling and labor costs put Weyerhaeuser back i

the com petitive running.Some stunning product ideas come from an eng




knowledge of unexpressed needs with knowledge of

how to fill those needs. U.S. women were annoyedfor years by the inappropriateness of using a man'ssafety razor, designed for faces, on their underarmsand legs. When a female designer reshaped the razorfor a woman's hand and needs-the Gillette LadySe nsor- it was enormously successful.

The oft-repeated advice to "delight the cus-tom er" assumes real meaning when product or ser-vice providers push beyond what their customers

Empathic-design techniquescan't replace market research;rather, they contribute to the flow

of ideas that need further testing.U

anticipate to deliver the unexpected-and technol-ogy is a primary agent of such delight. But all com-panies have capabilities they are failing to tap intheir quest to create innovative products and ser-vices because those who know wbat can be doneare not generally in direct contact with those whoneed something done. Empathic-design techniquesthus exploit a company's existing technological

capabilities in the widest sense of the term. When acompany's representatives explore their customers'worlds with the eyes of a fresh observer whilesimultaneously carrying the knowledge of what ispossible for the company to do, they can redirectexisting organizational capabilities toward newmarkets. Consider it a process of mining knowl-edge assets for new veins of innovation. Usually,much of the basic underlying technology or servicemethodologies already exist; they just need to beapplied differently.

One important note: empathic-design techniquescannot replace market research; rather, they con-tribute to the flow of ideas that need further scien-tific testing before a company com mits itself to anyfull-fledged development project.

Empathic Design: the Process

Com panies can engage in em pathic design, or simi-lar techniques such as contextual inquiry, in a vari-ety of ways. However, most employ the following

five-step process:Step One: Observation. It's important to clarify

Who should be observed^ These individualsbe customers, noncustomers, the customers of tomers, or a group of individuals who by playdifferent roles collectively perform a task.

Hewlett-Packard makes protocol analyzer sware that enables managers of com puter operatto diagnose network malfunctions. As netwohecame m ore complex, smaller companies begaoffer customized software for the idiosyncrneeds of some of HP's customers. In response,

designers conducted extensive mket research, which resulted in acophony of requests to expandtypes of data the analyzers cotrack and report on. Not only that make product developmmuch more difficult, it also failemake the products any more eftive. Users became inundated wdata that they couldn't turn into ful information. HP developers

cided to stop focusing on their traditional tomers, the operations managers. Instead, twatched, among others, network maintenatechnicians at work.

From those observations, the developers disered that what their customers really needed not, as they had been told, more data to analRather, users needed to recover swiftly from c

puter crashes. That change in perspective led shift in technological emphasis. The result HP's highly successful Network Advisor, whichemphasizes data collection, analysis, and repInstead, it identifies the network problem, recmends a solution, and suggests ways to implemthe solution quickly.

Who should do the observingi Differencetraining, education, and natural inclinations dispose different people to extract very differenformation when watching the exact same s

tion. A human-factors specialist may note bpositions; an engineer may notice angles andchanical interactions; a designer may see spand forms. Of course, many people are mu ltiskobservers, but the best way to capture the mostportant aspects of an environment is to send osmall team, each m ember of which has expertia different discipline. Th at's what the design IDEO did for Details, a subsidiary of the ofequipment supplier, S teelcase. To help D etailvelop a more easily repositioned computer

board, IDEO sent a hum an-fa ctors expe rtengineer, and a designer on anthropological exptions into office buildings. Each team mem




Observing in Cyberspace

The techniques of empathic design are a natural for

the physical marketplace: watching customers use a

product or service intheir own homes or offices pro-vides awealth of information about possible innova-

tions in real time and with little or no distortion, Butempathic design also has great potential in the virtualworld, or the "marketspace." Increasingly, people con-duct business transactions-from hanking and invest-ing topurchasing and installing software packages-through cyherspace. Observing behavior in that vir-tual realm can yield many of the same benefits as ob-servation in the physical world. In fact, in many situa-tions, the virtua l form of empa thic design can result inspeedier, more targeted innovation because compa-nies ca n "wa tc h " many more people at any given timein cyherspace and spot needs and trends at the very

instant they emerge.For example, software developers are increasingly

taking advantage of "p lu g - in s " - s m a l l m o d u le s ofcomputer code that they can download directly fromthe Web through their Internet browsers and combinetogether tomake larger applications. Microsoft andNetscape are highly interested in which plug-ins theirc u s to me r s a r c d o wn lo a d in g v ia th e i r r e s p e c t iv ebrowsers, Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator.Both companies can directly observe users runningthe plug-ins, gaining clues about emerging customerneeds. For exam ple, ma ny browser users have recently

begun to experiment with Internet telephony- that is,they have begun to use software from companies suchas VocalTec Communications tomake long-distancephone calls for free over the Web. Responding to thistrend, Microsoft and Netscape now offer browserswith Internet telephony built in .

Similarly, software designers, who often conductbeta tes ts of new produc ts on the Web with largegroups of "techies," have access to enormously variedvirtual discussions ahout the ir products. Every time acompany releases a beta version of software on theWeb and invites hackers to find bugs, identify flaws,and suggest improv emen ts, that company can h arvestinsights in to future needs by observing how users cus-tomiz e and critique their products.

And the success ofAmerica Online can be attrih-uted inpart to the fact that its managers understoodand acted on wh at they found when they observed cus-tomers' usage patterns- Originally, managers had be-lieved that information services would drive theirbusiness, but they found that those offerings were notwhat users valued most. Kather, users valued the abil-it y tocommunicate through vir tual channels withone anoth er. So AOL invested aggressively in creating

venue s for social intera ction , ranging from chat room sand E-mail to buddy lists and event forums.

W hen AOL has ignored the wisdom of observing andlistening to its markets, it has stumbled badly. Wit-

ness the recen t consumer backlash tha t occur redwhen the commercial on-line service announced thatit would sell the phone numbers of its 8.5 millionusers to telemarketers for a hefty sum. Itpays to stayclose to users through physical or digital observationas they use or experience th e product or service.

Of course, the techniques of empathic design do nottranslate directly from the physical world to the vir-tual one. In fact, some w ould argue that "oh servatio n"in the mark etspace is simply cap turing data. And to anextent it is, since all observation u ltim ately becom es asource ofdata ahout users. But data represent behav-

ior . And therein l ies much untapped potentia l-un-tapped because the techniques of empathic design de-mand amuch more intensive approach to those datathan m ost com panies currently take. Empathic designrequires researchers to t hin k ahout a body of data as awindow into consum ers' behavior and then to use thatinformation as the basis for innovation. That requiresa substantial investment in reflection and analysis-some thing many com panies have not yet made.

Companies observing incyberspace also face theissue of where to draw the line when itcomes to pri-vacy. Observation in the marketspace is by nature un-

obtrusive and can be perceived as invasive. Customersdo not want to be spied on. It is im po nan t to considerwhat customers may consider an invasion of privacyand when the customer should be allowed to set theboundaries on a company's observations. Tbe Micro-sof t Network sof tware or iginally scanned and re-ported back to Microsoft the other programs its usershad on their hard drives. The purpose of the ohserva-tion ostensibly was to help Microsoft make its prod-ucts compatible with other vendors ' sof tware. Butcusto m ers raised concerns abo ut privacy, and the prac-tice was discontinued .

It is worthwhile for companies to address that issueand to explore the potential of empathic-design tech-niques in the marketspace. Not only is it straightfor-ward and inexpensive to observe custom ers' behaviorin the virtual world, but many companies are alreadycollecting the raw material they need, whether theyknow itor not, simply by virtue of their on-going ac-tivit ies inmarketspace channels . Every move thatconsumers make in tbe virtual worid leaves a digitalfingerprint; collectively, those prints form a trail thatoutlines needs and desires, pointing the way towardsuccessful innovation.




Because a critical objective of such an expeditionis to match the unarticulated needs of users withtechnological possibilities, at least one member ofany team should have experience in behavioral ob-servation and another should have a deep under-standing of the organizational capabilities the de-velopment team can draw upon. When the teamcomes from an outside consulting firm, some of theclient's employees should be included to providetha t deep understanding. The Doblin Group, for ex-ample, was challenged to redefine the travel experi-ence for SAS. It convened a very large team that in-cluded not only social scientists and informationdesigners but also pilots and flight attendants fromthe airline. The airline employees understood SAS'scapabilities in depth and also knew how proposedservice innovations might require changes not justin operations but also in corporate cu lture.

Few organizations have large numbers of employ-ees capable of conducting such anthropologicalexpeditions. When asked what characteristicsmembers of empathic-design teams should have.

Nissan designers were startled tosee how many people were eatingin trucks-not just drinks, butwhole spaghetti dinners.

managers that employ those techniques list onesrarely found on most resumes: open-mindedness,observational skills, and curiosity. Human resourcedepartments are not set up to screen for such abili-ties. Some companies, such as Intel and Xerox, havehired cu ltural anthropologists and social psycholo-gists for their research, marketing, or product de-

velopment departments because they are trainedobservers who have demonstrated an interest in hu-man behavior. Other organizations outsource thiskind of work to design firms, knowing that thereare employees in such specialty companies with avariety of skills: experts in hum an factors, in graph-ics and visual design, and in engineering.

What behavior should be observed^ The peoplebeing observed should be carrying out normal rou-t ines-playing, eat ing, relaxing, or working athome or at the office. For its research on mobile

communications, the Doblin Group followed alawyer from the moment she left her children at

of com munication needs that are often overlooFew people, of course, are totally oblivious team of people hanging over their shoulders,serving them at work or play. But a real-life atsphere-even a slightly stilted one-is still betban the highly artificial setting of a focus-grconference room or a laboratory. For some prodand services, team members may conduct t

observations in a highly unobtrusive way simplplanting themselves in a public setting where pple are going about their normal routines watching behaviors more systematically thanusual sidewalk observer generally does.

Step Two: Capturing Data. Because empatdesign techniques stress observation over inqurelatively few data are gathered through respoto questions. (See the exhibit "Inquiry Versusservation: What's Different?") When they wisknow how to interpret people's actions, obsermay ask a few very open-ended questions, suc"Why are you doing that?" They often carry a liquestions to prom pt their own ohservations

example, "What problems is the encountering?" But most datagathered from visual, auditory, sensory cues. Thus empathic-deteams very frequently use photophy and videography as tools.

Video can capture subtle, flee

body language that may convey lamounts of information and sit for future review and analysis.more than a decade, researcher

Xerox PARG, the Xerox Palo Alto Research Cenhave videotaped users when they were confrowith a product such as a new copier m achine.researchers can see puzzled looks on the subjfaces, they w atch as people search for controls,they can observe the kinds of automatic respothat happen when someone expects a control t

here or there and it is not. Such cues come anwithin the span of mere seconds and are harcapture in notes .

Even still photographs convey information can be lost in verbal descriptions. Nissan DeInternational commissioned a photographetravel to several cities and take pictures of peoptrucks to better understand how they were bused as commuter and family cars. NDI desigwere startled to discover how little their tr(and those of competitors) were actually being

for the purposes being advertised and reportemarket surveys. NDI president Hirshberg was




uffed up some of the vehicles were. They began tof some vehicles should be more like denim

ore worn they got.Photographs or drawings (which artists and de-

on a bulletin board all the candid photos they tooof the people they ohserved in an office buildingthey were struck by the snake pit of wires in whiceveryone's feet were stuck. That led their companto build in conduits for those wires in its next generation of dividers for m odular offices. And pictureof backyard barbecues taken for the developerfrom the Thermos company who were working oa new charcoal grill showed women struggling w itequipment designed for the generally greater heigh

Inquiry Versus O bs erv ation: W hat's Different?

Inquiry

I. People can't ask for what they don't know is

technically possible.

2. People are generally highly unreliable re-porters of their own behavior.

Observation

1. Well-chosen observers bave deep knowledge of

corporate capabilities, including the extentof the company's technical expertise.

2. Observers rely on real actions rather than re-ported behavior.

3. People tend to give answers they think areexpected or desired.

4. People are less likely to recall their feelingsabout intangible characteristics of productsand services when they aren 't in the process of

using them .

5. People's imaginations-and hence their de-sires-are bounded by their experience; theyaccept inadequacies and deficiencies in theirenvironment as normal.

6. Questions are often biased and reflect inquir-ers' unrecognized assumptions.

7. Questioning interrupts the usual flow of peo-ple's natural activity.

8. Questioning stifles opportunities for users tosuggest innovations.

3. People are not asked to respond to verbal stim-uli; they give nonverbal cues of their feelingsand responses through body language, in addi-tion to spontaneous, unsolicited comments.

4. Using the actual product or a prototype, or en-gaging in the actual activity for which an in-novation is being designed, stimulates com-ments about such intangibles as smells oremotions associated with the product's use.

5. Trained, technically sophisticated ohserverscan see solutions to unarticulated needs.

6. Observation is open ended and varied; trainedobservers tend to cancel out one ano ther's ob-servational b iases.

7. Observation, while almost never totally unob-trusive, interrupts normal activities less thanquestioning does.

8. Observers in the field often identify user inno-vations that can be duplicated and improved

for the rest of the market.




and upper body strength of men, who were (incor-rectly) assumed to be the m ost likely outdoor fami-ly chefs.

Step Three: Reflection and Analysis. After gath-ering data in many forms, the team m em bers retu rnto reflect on what they have observed and to reviewtheir visual data with other colleagues. Those indi-vidu als-u nha mp ere d by possibly extraneous infor-mation, such as the reputations of the individualsor compan ies visited or the wea ther at the observa-tion site-will focus on the data before them, andthey, too, will see different things. They will askquestions that tbe team members may or may notbe able to answer and tbat may well send tbem outfor furtber observation. It is at this point that tbeteam tries to identify all of its customers' possibleproblems and needs.

Tbe IDEO team redesigning Lifeline Systems'

personal-response un it for elderly people uncovereda potentially dangerous problem only after tbeysbared their field data with colleagues. On leavingfor an extended period, many users turned off theirunits so tbat Lifeline's monitoring staff would notmistake s i lence for anemergency. However, be-cause tbe unit lacked an obvious status indicator,users often forgot to reactivate tbe un its wb en the yreturned. The opportunity to improve the designwas recognized by engineers who were not part ofthe original group of IDEO observers. Consequent-ly, IDEO redesigned tbe product so tbat it indicatedeven to the vision impaired when itwas turned offand automat ical ly res tar ted when users t r ied to

send their habitual "all is we ll" signals to tbe m on-itoring service.

Step Four: Brainstorming for Solutions. Brain-s t o r m i n g is a valuable par t of any i nnova t i onprocess; within tbe empatbic-design process, it is

used specifically to transform the observa tions into

Photographs show spatialarrangements and details thatmay go unnoticed in the field.

graphic, visual representat ions of possible solu-t ions. Design firms maintain tbat tbis step is oftenundervalued: "Our clients sometimes don't under-s tand why brainstorming is expens i ve -and i m -

mensely productive - un til they ba ve sat in on a ses-s ion. Tben they usual ly go away shaking their

wi th a creat ive process , it is not undiscipl inManagers at IDEO tell their emp loyees to heed rules: defer judgment, build on tbe ideas of otbhold one conversation at a time, stay focused ontopic, and encourage wild ideas.

Such sessions are valuable not only for tbe idthat pop up during tbe actual brainstorm ing sesbut also for tbe conce pts and solutions tha t occupeople later, at home, because tbe seeds to tbbad been planted in tbeir minds.

Companies that rout inely hold brainstormsessions as part of the empathic-design procneed supporting infrastructure. That can be as tech as a table covered in tbick paper used for dling and tak ing notes; wben a session is over, tmembers can tear off the best ideas and take thbome. It can be as bigb tecb as the Idea Faetorphysical and virtual space being set up in San Fcisco to help companies create next-generaproducts and business strategies. To facilitate laborative work, the Idea Factory will boast ws ta t ions ; cus tomized groupware; and the l awhite-board recording equipment, which can duce hard copies of whatever iswri t ten dowdrawn on th e board's surface.

Step Five: Developing Prototypes of PossSolutions. Clearly, prototypes are not uniqueempatbic design. But the more radical an inntion, of course, the harder it is to understand

it should look, function, and be used. Justa

searcbers gather useful visual data, so too can stimulate communication by creating some phcal representation of a new concept for a proor service. Prototypes are a critical part of thepatbic-design process for at least three reasons:> Prototypes clarify the concept of the new proor service for the developm ent team .• Th ey enable the team to place its concept in f

of other individuals who workfunctions not formally represe

on the team.• They can stimtilatc reaction foster discussion witb potential tomers of the innovation becaustbeir concreteness.

Som et i m es , t wo p ro t o t ypesused, one tbat emulates the func

but not tbe form, and anotber tbat illustratesideal physical appearance of the intended probut doesn't work. In designing the outdoor gThermos's Lifestyle team produced two mod

which they called tbe Monitor and tbe Merrim(after tb e C ivil War ships). Th e M on itor w as a f




ct m ade of plastic foam. Tbe c om-

Simulations are also useful prototypes. And they

of Illinois's CAVE, wbicb simulatesof a room and can be

to represent different environments,a factory. Infact, many useful simulationsat all. When Chaparral Steel

to design metal splash guards to

apply their intensive knowledge of media possibilities within constraints tbat they could not otherwise personally experience (at least for some years)

Empathic Design as a Culture Shift

A common cri t icism of the kinds of innovat ive

ideas arising through em path ic design is, "But use rhaven't asked for that." Precisely. By tbe time theydo, your compet i to rs wi l l have the same newproduct ideas youh a v e - a n d you will be in th

the rolling mill, they posi-

at various angles andto simu late different designs. The plywood

by the hot metal , but not

the experimenters could learn what design

Role-playing is also a form of s imulat ion. At In-

of Palo Alto, Califor-de-

on their arms and legs so they couldit would be like for the very elderly to

or use hand ges-s in the air as a way to con trol the next genera-

"m e- t oo" gam e of copying and improving tbeiideas. Empathic-design techniques involve a twis

on the idea that new-product development shouldbe guided by users. In this approach, tbey still d othey just don't know it.

Empathic design pushes innovation beyond producing the same thing only better. So for examplecomputer company managers wbo have been ex

posed to a deep cultural understanding of mobili tyno longer think only of making lighter, faster, andmore durable laptops. Instead, they are challengedto consider other communication needs a portablecom puter might m eet. Developing a deep, empath

ic understanding of users ' unarticulated needs canchallenge industry assumptions and lead to a shif



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