Book Titles

A significant product innovation packaged in a stunning design is very hard to beat.

We can distinguish mere novelties from real innovations fairly easily. The really simple test is to show the change to someone and wait to see if he describes it as ‘cool.’

Cool is often clever, but it is rarely useful. We are attracted to cool and we will tell our friends about it, but not many of us will buy it.

Novelty, like appearance, is a short-term play unless the novelty has deep underlying values that add utility to the product.

We may be interested in looks when we buy, but we do not buy on looks alone. Utility is the reason we went shipping in the first place.

…the focus group is really an unfocused instrument. We ask for so much information from it in such a short space of time that there is a great risk… that the forest will get lost in the trees.

…as we walk through the use of a product in detail, we begin to see what features are excess and what additional features might be added. We see where the weaknesses are instead of just the strengths.

All true product innovation takes place at the task level because innovation is in the eye of the user, not of the engineering department.

The saving of work represents utility, and remember, net utility is what innovation is all about.

Question #2: When I know what taska product is really used for, are there any steps that I can remove from that task?