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Conceptual Understanding: Designers will be successful in the marketplace when they solve long-standing problems, improve on existing solutions or find a “product gap”. The constant evaluation and redevelopment of products is key, with unbiased analysis of consumers and commercial opportunities.
Innovation is the business of putting an invention in the marketplace and making it a success. It is making an invention useful and successfully entering it into the marketplace. Reasons why inventions might not become innovations:
Marketability- Low product demand or not easy to sell
Financial support- There is little financial backing from the organisation or an outsider. The invention would need more sponsors to financially aid the product.
Marketing- Is the process of getting products from the producer or vendor to the consumer or buyer, which includes advertising, shipping, storing, and selling. Poor marketing strategies or wrong target markets. Invention would need to be advertised as a product the public would want. Trends in innovation.
The need for the invention- Examples include alternative energy resources to combat our insatiable need for oil however if oil prices are low or there is a ready supply of oil then the alternative energy invention will not take hold.
Price- Affordable, cost effectiveness or value for money … therefore it may be too expensive to purchase, or to manufacture and the consumer may not see it worth its cost compared to its use.Keep in mind, the product’s price needs to be equivalent to the income of the specific age group that would buy the majority of the product.
Resistance to change- People and organisations can be resistant and reluctant to change, feeling comfort and security in the familiar thus resist new ideas/products.
Aversion to risk- Risk aversion is a concept in economics, finance, and psychology related to the behaviour of consumers and investors under uncertainty.
Discussions regarding the lacking in elements of the above.
An interesting point here is that if you claim to invent within your final project, there WILL be an examiner who will search to prove you wrong.
Categories of Innovation
Sustaining Innovation: Innovative ideas that are constantly updated in order to maintain their success. A new or improved product that meets the needs of consumers and sustains manufacturers.
Examples include Apple iPod and Apple Watch 1 and 2 or other examples include the iPhone where 2nd, 3rd … 6th generations/versions of the product have been developed.
Disruptive Innovation: A product or type of technology that challenges existing companies to ignore or embrace technical change. Often a radical change
Examples include streaming technology through the internet that changes the way we watch movies, TV series and listen to music. eReaders that not only change the way in which we read books but also change the way in which we buy or borrow them. Online shopping changes the way we use shopping malls, from a place of transaction to an oversized fitting room.
Process Innovation: An improvement in the organisation and/or method of manufacture that often leads to reduced costs or benefits to consumers.
Examples: Look at how food is prepared in fast food chains such as McDonalds.
Example is in the automobile industry such as Ford (1913) with the introduction of assembly line production and Toyota with lean manufacturing.
Architectural Innovation: The technology of the components stays the same, but the configuration of the components is changed to produce a new design.
Putting existing components together in novel ways.
Examples include: electric cars, Sony Walkman, coffee machines, Wireless Keyboards, Razor Blade.
Modular Innovation: The basic configuration stays the same, but one or more key components are changed.
Examples include a new type of switch/button on a toaster.
Also known as incremental design- from analogue to digital.
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Other examples include making an existing comment better such as a new type of petrol filter, Youtube or Facebook and also Google’s Project Ara – new dream phone.
Configurational Innovation: A change is made in both technology and organisation. Modifying arrangements of components to improve performance, usability and function (buttons, interface, dials, better heating element, 4 slots rather than 2, etc) and also introducing enhanced haptic technology.
Radical Innovation: Changing the paradigm of the market that the new product is produced in: invention of smartphones changed the phone industry. It is similar to diffusion but the difference is that a radical innovation might not always be successful as it might not be accepted into the marketplace.
Examples: Blockchain, Tesla's self driving cars, SpaceX reusable launch system.
Innovation strategies for markets include diffusion and suppression
Diffusion: is a process where a market will accept a new idea or product. The rate it accepts the new idea or product can be increased by several factors.
Examples of widely diffused products include the, light bulb, refrigerator (100%), ATM cards, DVD- Netflix might not be available/affordable by all.
Once widely accepted they often become dominant designs.
Suppression: is a process where a new idea or adoption of a product by the market is actively slowed. This may be due to difficulties competing with a dominant design, ambiguity over patent ownership, competing companies actively petitioning against a new product it perceives as threatening, or the natural resistance to an unfamiliar concept.
Examples include the telephone (landline) when it had to compete with the firmly established (dominant design) of the telegraph(y).
5G, USB port C type is new system and USB 2 and Audio jack socket are being suppressed
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