Grounded Innovation

Grounded Innovation: Strategies for Creating Digital Products focuses on the innovation processes and technical properties of digital products. Drawing on case studies, the book looks at systematic ways to ground innovation in both technology and human needs, and it explores how digital products have become integrated in the real world. It provides guidelines to innovation in a new technical environment, including prototyping and testing, within the cultural or financial parameters of a business.

The book is divided into two parts. Part 1 discusses the history and the basic properties of digital products; the different approaches to innovation; the concept of grounded innovation; and concepts and processes that are important for creating successful innovations such as inquiry, invention, and prototyping. Part 2 demonstrates how the basic properties of digital products can be used as raw material for new innovations, including interaction, networking, sensing, and proactivity. There is also a discussion on recent technology, such as rapid prototyping and mobile mash-ups. A wide variety of examples show how novel technical and conceptual innovations became commercial breakthroughs.

Grounded Innovation is ideal for product designers, interaction designers, and design-oriented engineers. It will also be a valuable resource for anyone interested in understanding how digital products are created and in a general approach to information technology.

• Wide variety of examples show how novel technical and conceptual innovations became commercial breakthroughs
• Provides guidelines to innovation in a new technical environment including prototyping and testing
• Discusses how to innovate within the cultural or financial parameters of a business

Product Designers, Interaction Designers, and Design-Oriented Engineers

• About the Author
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• PART I. Methods
• Chapter 1. Understanding Digital Products
• Chapter 2. Innovation
• Chapter 3. Inquiry
• User Inquiry
• Technical Inquiry
• The Technology Hype Cycle
• Chapter 4. Invention
• Brainstorming and Other Idea-Generation Techniques
• Chapter 5. Prototyping
• The Lure of the Cargo Cult
• PART II. Materials
• Chapter 6. Interaction
• Chapter 7. Networking
• One-Dimensional Barcodes
• Two-Dimensional Barcodes
• RFID: The Invisible Tag
• Image Recognition: Connecting Without Tagging
• Chapter 8. Sensing
• Chapter 9. Proactivity
• Chapter 10. Creating Digital Products
• Index