Description
Book SynopsisThere is a problem with innovation research. Many of the methods used to study people for strategic and design innovation purposes are not up to the task. They are holdovers from market research or are simplified versions of tools borrowed from other fields of research. The problem exists because these methods cannot provide the kind of understanding, or grounding in people’s lived experience to meet the requirements of design and strategy innovation. The world is only becoming more complicated, and innovation’s impacts on people’s lives and the environment are only increasing. It is essential we work to fulfill the promises of human-centered research with better research practices, and create positive interventions into people’s lives while resisting the reductionist, damaging, and wasteful tendencies of design thinking research and human-centered design (HCD). This book critiques many of the common methods used in innovation research and provides directions to overcome their weaknesses by developing a radical human-centric approach.
Trade Review“This is the book every entrepreneur and innovation worker needs to read. Engaging with people properly is essential to providing innovative solutions for your customers, and doing it right the first time can save you blood, sweat, and tears.” —Maryam Nabavi, CEO and Cofounder of Babbly.
“This book is making a valuable argument and the time has come for practitioners to build more onramps for ethnographic and holistic social scientific approaches to shape business, innovation, and commercial research in ways that are more humane, sustainable, and positive in impact. Hartley has done a smart job uncovering the shortcomings of traditional innovation, design thinking, and market research in understanding and creating for humans. At the same time, he lays out a pathway for a more radically human research approach that acknowledges the messiness and complexities of everyday life and while providing just enough hooks for practitioners and businesses to grab on to.” —Adam Gamwell, Business/Design Anthropologist, Missing Link Studios.
Hartley, author of Radical Human Centricity, said the concept of “human centricity” predates recent thinking about AI, growing out of notions about “user experience,” or “UX,” in the technology sector where tech geeks might be tempted to wander off into the never-never land of technology for technology’s sake. In some science fiction future, AI may eventually be able to think for itself and find its own motivations that are incomprehensible to us. But until that time, no matter how advanced, AI will remain a tool for use by humans for human purposes.—CBC News
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments; Foreword by Alexander Manu; Introduction; Part I The Critique; Part II Core Considerations; Part III The RHC Approach; An Outline of the RHC Process; Scope; 1.0 The Idea, 1.1 The History of an Idea, 1.2 Assumptions behind a Need for Research, 1.3 The Expectations; 2.0 Framing the Research, 2.1 Getting the Brief Right, 2.2 Hypotheses Are Created to Be Wrong, 2.3 Understanding What Has Been Done Before, 2.4 Connecting the Need with Outcomes; 3.0 Making a Space for Planning, 3.1 The Ethics of Research, 3.2 Choosing the Right Tool for the Job, 3.3 The Right Team for the Job, 3.4 Leaving Space for Failure, Observe; 4.0 Set-up, 4.1 Recruiting, 4.2 The First Respondent Problem, 4.3 Pre-Research, 4.4 Know Your Field Site, 4.5 Thoughts on Screeners, Discussion Guides, and Moderators, 4.6 Planning for Remote/Online Interviews; 5.0 Entry, 5.1 Nothing Goes to Waste, 5.2 Leaving the Consultant’s Ivory Tower; 6.0 In Field, 6.1 Recording Fieldnotes; 7.0 Leaving, 7.1 Getting Out, 7.2 Building Lasting Relationships, Understand; 8.0 Analysis, 8.1 Data Management, 8.2 Actually Managing Complexity, 8.3 Mitigating the Dreaded “Subjectivity”; 9.0 Synthesis; 10.0 Return-Test-Verify-Edit; Generate; 11.0 Insights, 11.1 Description, 11.2 Define, 11.3 Translate, 11.4 Actionability Notes on Activation; Conclusion; References; Index
