Creating Breakthrough Products: Innovation from Product Planning to Program Approval

Chapter 7. Understanding the User's Needs, Wants, and Desires

In order to create a breakthrough product, your company must know who your customer is and how to place that knowledge in the perspective of the market that your product competes in. This chapter provides techniques to help you balance qualitative methods for understanding needs, wants, and desires with more quantitative approaches for assessing issues of usability. Traditional methods of ergonomics research are complemented by a range of other techniques, which include new product ethnography, scenario development, and lifestyle reference. The results of this research provide insights that characterize potential customers in the target market and serve as a basis for testing the ...