Practitioners-Guide-User-Experience-Design

NEVER INTRODUCE AN INNOVATION JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN
President Bill Clinton famously said he had engaged in the dalliance with Monica
Lewinsky that led to his impeachment for the worst reason to do anything: because he
could.
Some products and companies succeed in their innovations because innovation is
intrinsic to the value they’re offering; it’s baked into their very being that they make use of
some new technology. Foursquare is a case in point, breaking out by making GPS location
the distinguishing feature of its service. But it’s easy to rely too much on the value of
introducing a cool new technology or feature, and being first to market or in the first wave
doesn’t always pay off.
As reported by Business Insider, car designer Ferdinand Porsche came up with the
idea of a hybrid vehicle way back in 1898: the Lohner-Porsche Mixte-Hybrid, which he
created for the Lohner Coach company. The batteries it required weighed more than a
whole Prius of today, and needless to say, the car failed to take off. 1 One of the most
notorious failures of the late-nineties dot-com craze was the home grocery delivery service
Webvan. The app Color infamously surfaced and tanked due to its heady but maybe too
hip approach to location-based chatting. People just weren’t ready to jump into proximitybased
chat rooms with strangers.
Technology definitely helps show the way toward innovation, but as influential
industrial designer Dieter Rams says, good innovation must always be introduced in
tandem with good design, and the key to good design in web products, as we know, is
keeping in mind the LEMErS. If the innovation isn’t easily learned, efficient, memorable,
relatively error-free, and satisfying to users, seriously think about tabling it. Just consider
the advantage Steve Jobs achieved by waiting seven years after the release of the first
device dubbed a smartphone (the Ericsson R380, put out in 2000 by Ericsson Mobile
Communications) to come out with the iPhone. Always watch out for innovation for
innovation’s sake.