This week’s articles we read about the many amazingly simply
innovation that are being product to address the basic human needs people deserve
to have in many undeveloped countries. I cannot help but think why are these
innovations not reaching more people? Why is that millions if not billions of
people know of Coke but not of VOTO, SOCCKET, and Ikea’ Shelters?
I feel as though many
of these designers, innovations, and architects are not utilizing the concept of
Design Thinking or have a strong marketing plan target at the designated population.
In the article, Design Thinking for Social Innovation, it spoke of a young woman
called Shanti who fetches water daily from her borehole about 300 feet from her
home. This water is not safe; however,
Shanti continues to use this water instead of safer water at a closer locate
treatment center. Shanti is foregoing the safer water due to a flaw in the design
of the system. Shanti is unable to carry the 5 – gallon jerrican that the
facility requires her to use. The design
of this system does not take into account the client’s needs and wants and does
not petition feedback. I wonder how many
these organizations have taken time out to address how their product will meet
the needs of the clients. For example Ikea’s Shelter are simply and amazing way
to address the need of shelter for refugees. However who will build these
shelters that take 4 hours to set up which I assume is much more time than
setting up a tent? Who will ship these shelters to the refugee camps and ensure
they are being built properly? The shelters can withstand the cold and heat of
the desserts; however, what about the dust storms? All these questions can be address by using the
concept of Design Thinking. Ikea can sent out a team to spend time in refugee
camp to observe and do research on how the camps function. The
information collected by the team can give insight on how to delivery and if necessary
change accepts of the shelters. Instead
of rolling out the shelters to hundreds of refugee camps and spending thousands if
not hundreds thousands of dollar, Ikea can built prototypes to minimize risk or
error. These prototypes can be set up in one or two camps to ensure they
address the needs of the refugees. In
addition I think need these innovators need to utilize a strong marketing plan
that emphasis an effective feedback system.
In order to truly see if your product
/service is impacting the intended people you need to find out
what people want from your service /product. I feel as though many people assume
they know their clients' or customers' needs which can leads to many innovations
being unused due to a misunderstanding of identifying their needs. After all that being said
why do you feel that many simple amazing innovations are going unheard of or not
reaching more people?
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