Technology Vs. Design--What is the Source of Innovation?

Don Norman, a rare intellect and a major godfather of Design, has launched a provocative broadside against Design that has enormous implications for building an innovative society. Norman tells designers to get over themselves. It is science and technology that drive truly disruptive innovation, not Design’s focus on the needs and wants of people. Ethnographic research, Norman says, can generate small, incremental innovations but the blockbuster game-changing stuff, comes from the lab, not the village or the mall. Norman states: “I’ve come to a disconcerting conclusion: design research is great when it comes to improving existing product categories but essentially useless when it comes to new, innovative breakthroughs.” In short, tech trumps culture. New technology comes first. Inventing new products comes second. Finding new needs for those products comes third.

This is from the author of The Design of Everyday Things, Emotional Design and dozens of pieces on user experience and emotion. So the impact of his words within the design and innovation community is huge. It’s also from a great man with whom I’ve shared a fancy dinner with in Davos.