Radical Human Centricity: Fulfilling the Promises of Innovation Research

Description

There 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.

Paul Hartley is an anthropologist and foresight practitioner. He is the CEO of the Human Futures Studio.

"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.