|
|
Contextual Innovation
Many products and services need to
be completely redesigned for new markets. This requirement
for redesign goes beyond the localization requirement that most
of us are familiar with. This need for redesign, or for design innovation based on available
technology, reflects the fundamentally different characteristics
of emerging markets.
Try our Contextual Innovation quiz... |
|
|
"New markets require new products and new designs—designs that have not been force-fitted to the new environment. While redesigning for a new market segment, an in-depth study of its culture, lifestyle, and preferences becomes imperative. Then alone can we effectively determine the type of products, services, messages, or strategies that will best fit."
Apala Chavan
VP Asia
Human Factors International |
 |
Contextual Innovation is a systematic multidisciplinary process
of inquiry into the new frontiers of user system interactions. It
allows you to gain practical knowledge about your target markets
to develop entirely novel, more useful and effective products and
services.
Users are the best source of new ideas. Our research methodologies,
rooted in cultural anthropology, sociology, and psychology, help
us contextually study the "situated" behaviors, goals,
intentions and thoughts of the potential users. Unlike traditional
market research, which employs staged focus groups and superficial
questionnaires as their main data source, we use tools and methodologies
that elicit the deepest responses – thereby laying the building
blocks of tomorrow's designs.
Our methodologies are largely organized in four stages:
Research: Our process starts with a deep understanding
of users, their characteristics, needs, motivations, overall experience
with the world, and their everyday lives.
Analysis: The collected data is then analyzed
and interpreted to create meaningful and relevant insights, often
in the form of frameworks and models, which become the essence of
the innovation.
Synthesis: In order to make the insights most
useful and relevant, we embark on a continuous and iterative process
of searching for solutions and ideas, which are novel, useful and
sustainable.
Implementation: We implement these insights and
ideas to create prototypes that can be used for iterative testing
throughout your development cycles. |
- Study the culture, lifestyle, and preferences of a specific
market or culture in order to determine the type of products,
services, messages or strategy that best fits.
- Observe and create a competitive analysis of how your products,
services, and brands are being used and perceived by your customers.
- Renew or redefine your product offerings for a new market segment.
- Research the social and cultural trends that affect your business,
positioning, brand, products, and services.
- Establish a sustainable partnership with your company to streamline
your product development process.
- Define and implement an internal process for innovation.
- Analyze opportunities for existing markets to make the best
of a new technology or capability you have developed or acquired.
- Our Proprietary Competitive Analysis helps businesses understand
their overall brand experience through real customer interaction.
|
The industrial design (ID) capabilities compliment the process
of contextual innovation. ID helps transform the design insights
from contextual innovations into concrete product ideas. The team
at HFI has extensive experience in managing complete product design
life cycle projects for industries such as automotive, consumer
products, electronics, healthcare and electrical equipment. Our
expertise includes:
- Understanding "Product-User-Environment-Task" domain
and following a system design approach
- Product safety and ergonomic studies
- Exploration of form based on product function
- Quick prototyping for iterative design process
- Design optimization based on value engineering techniques
- Support detailed technical design
- Product aesthetics and visual communication
- Development of functional prototypes for field studies and testing
|
|
|
