norman and innovation

don norman fired a shot across the collective design bow last month, and there has been some interesting discussion. i just read this critique by bruce nussbaum:

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/NussbaumOnDesign/archives/2009/12/technology_vs_c.html

as interesting though, if you scroll down the page, you find don norman responding amongst the other comments.

don’s main point in his comment: that real game changing innovation is driven foremost by new capabilities and not by needs assessment and design research. in other words, we rarely research an area first and then create a whole new technology. we tend instead to create new kinds of things and then later decide if it serves a need. whereas refinement of a category is well served by research. and he’s asking for counter examples.

the problem i have about this discussion is in the word “innovative” and how we define it. if we define it as “unusual” then sure, design research may not product as much unusualness compared to new, underlying technologies including new materials and capabilities. but aren’t we then more saying that unusualness more often comes from new technology than from ethnography? well, that’s not saying much. i just don’t think we should really equate unusualness with innovation. to me innovation really is more about moving the ball forward in an impactful way. not creating new categories of things that no one wants, like the segway.