User experience at the heart of innovation

Why place the user at the center of the design of new products, tools or services?

Talking about user experience means talking about the interaction between a user and a product and/or service. Each experience leaves us with a positive or negative memory, linked to pleasure or pain, reward or frustration. From there is born a quality of relation privileged, or not, with the object of the experience.

To speak of innovation is of course to think of the planetary successes of GAFA (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon), disruptive innovation from the Applestore to skype or BlaBlacar, from downloading to streaming, but also to incremental innovation, that of every day in our companies, that which gradually improves and transforms products, tools and services, interfaces, their look and feel, their functionalities, their practicality, their intuitiveness, their suitability for use...

In all these forms of innovation, the role of digital technology and user experience design is central. In any case, we must bear in mind the new paradigms:

> Flexibility, personalization, acceleration of cycles, association of products and services enabled by digitization.

http://mymms.fr See the well known My M & M's ou My Evian, but also for example Longchamps and its personalized bags or printing our 3D creations with Sculpteo.
 
 

 > Interconnection and therefore real-time circulation, sharing, copying, which results in a certain professionalization of amateurs.

Co-creation at Decathlon - author of the article: Marie SerindouTaking users into account becomes essential, either because they intervene directly, or because listening to them and analyzing their needs places them at the heart of projects. We know the success of Trip Advisor, BlaBlaCar, Airbnb. Moreover, open innovation and co-design have given wings to Lego and we have seen co-creation spaces appear, such as at Decathlon for example. Do It Yourself  has entered into our customs. 

> Rise in taking into account social and environmental issues that established structures have difficulty in exploiting, and which leads to innovation well beyond technology.

Wave project - Author of the article: Marie SerindouSee for example le wave project which aims to exploit the collective intelligence carried by associations, social networks or start-ups.

 

 

 

 

The time has passed to see innovation born almost exclusively within the company, the sorting being done downstream, the user being to conquer and educate. Today, it is deployed in a multidimensional, technical, social, organizational, commercial approach, in products and services. Not only the user chooses and eliminates, but in many cases these are of users who originate ideas taken over by established companies or start-ups. We must therefore accept creativity, experimentation and controlled risk in processes that promote their expression.

 

Marie Serindou, UX-Evangelist @UX-Republic