Is there a silver bullet guaranteed to extend the product lifecycle? In our latest "Briefly explained" series we share the most successful product development strategy used by incumbents to continually grow through incremental innovation. Roy McBurney talks about what he sees to be the evolution of User centered design into Customer centered and beyond into Human centered design. He explains how customer centered design principles may be broken down into a series of simple steps and suggests a framework that Product Managers may use in approaching a reformation project within their organisation.

1. Customer Centered Design
Briefly Explained

2. 2
Want to..
“The job of the product manager is to
create a product that is valuable,
useable and feasible”
Marty Cagan , Inspired: How to Create Products Customers Love

3. 3
Innovate?
“First users of a product, rather than
the manufacturer, are responsible for
over 75% of breakthrough inventions”
Von Hippel, “LEAD USERS: A Source of Novel Product Concepts,”
Management Science, 1986

4. 4
Do things differently?
“Design is no longer a discrete stylistic
gesture thrown at a project just before
it is handed off to marketing..”
Tim Brown, Change by Design

5. 5
To minimise risk?
“..Design is now part of product
conception right through to
implementation, and allows a
customer to write the last chapter
of the book”
Tim Brown, Change by Design

6. 6
And grow.
“When the user’s personal
goals are met by the design,
business goals are far more
effectively achieved”
Alan Cooper, About Face. The Essentials of Interaction Design

7. Customer centered design is not new..
..in fact it’s one of the most successful
market-pull strategies used in product
development over the past decade
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8. It delivers 2 major benefits
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Firstly, customer centered design can
dramatically reduce the risk of failure in
market.

10. 10
Secondly, your product lifecycle is
greatly extended through incremental
innovation that meets or exceeds
customer expectations

11. User,
Customer or
Human
Centered Design?
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12. These are three terms used to guide what is
essentially the same design process.
But there are subtle differences:
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13. The work of Von Hippel in the late
eighties pioneered the term Lead User
as a design philosophy stating..

14. 14
..that first-time users of a product are in the best
position to articulate their problems and derive
innovative solutions to those problems.

15. 10 years later the design thinking of
authors Beyer and Holtzblatt made
popular the term customer
centered systems..

16. .. and focused on a subset of the product development
planning phases by excluding the build phase

17. Recently human centered design
has become the buzz word but in
reality it simply applies..

18. .. a set of lenses to same planning phases
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19. During the Research phase we strive to hear
the voice of the customer. Qualitative
research techniques are used to extract
goals, needs and product requirements
desired by the customer.
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20. The Concept phase uses
the insights gathered from
Research to create
desirable, new concepts
that are validated through
ongoing consultation with
customers.
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21. Finally the Design phase
delivers a technically
feasible and commercially
viable prototype that meets
the needs, goals or wants of
the target customer.
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22. So, how do I conduct
research on my
customers’ needs, goals
and desires?
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23. As a Product Manager you can :
Spend time observing your subject matter
Interview an individual
Conduct a group interview
Ask your target market to document their opinions
Cross fertilise using solution design from another
industry
Perform secondary research (leverage existing product
data and subject matter expertise within your
organisation)

24. Where is customer centered design
most powerful?
Software development for established
products.
Incumbent service providers seeking to
increase their net promoter score.
Incremental innovation within mature markets
eg.
Customer Care and Hospitality
Banking and Finance
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25. The Financial Services industry has been
leveraging customer centered design during the
past two decades and their products now score
consistently high in customer satisfaction polling.
“Financial Services firm USAA earned the highest
NPS across all brands and industries examined at
87%”
Satmetrix 2011 report
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26. But there are limitations to customer
centered design and it is not strictly true
that customers always know what is best
for them.
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Think about products
heralding new
technology disruption
or radical innovation.

27. Also, many products operate in a market with
minimal opportunity for post sale customer
interaction eg.
Fashion industry
Retailers
“Retail consumer brands would kill for the number
of built-in interactions that your average retail bank
already has with its customers.”
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Global marketing strategist, Jonathan Salem Baskin

28. Whilst customer centered design dominates current UX
practitioner thinking it can prove resource intensive to gather
primary research.
In his 2009 article titled “5 Design Decision Styles” Jared
Spool shares design techniques requiring less research than
customer centered design:
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Less resource
intensive
More resource
intensive

29. The key is knowing when to deploy these
techniques:
Unintentional – sometimes good design is
pure luck.
Self Design – putting yourself in your
customer’s shoes.
Genius Design – anticipates customer need.
Activity Focused – addresses customer tasks
rather than needs.
Customer Centered – generally perceived to
be the least risky way of delivering successful
innovation.

30. In conclusion:
The best Product Managers are not
only familiar with the process and tools
of customer centered design but are
also aware of its limitations and
embrace innovation through alternate
design processes when needed.
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31. Brainmates applies a
repeatable Product
Delivery Framework that
embraces innovation.

32. Connect with Brainmates
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Brainmates Group @Brainmates
#prodmgmt
Facebook.com/Brainmates
www.brainmates.com.au info@brainmates.com.au + 61 2 9232 8147