Jeneanne Rae of Peer Insight argues in Business Week that to design an offering that customers will love, one has to start with a rough draft—and co-create with them.
“At the front end of innovation, the “rough draft” must be rough. That means prototypes that are cheap, simple and quick. To be effective service prototypes, they should inspire your audience—from beta testers to C-suite decision-makers—to assess the service through the eyes of a customer. How does it make them feel? Is it engaging? What’s missing? These early concepts should be unfinished and malleable, inviting improvement. Most importantly, these visualizations should create white space so the user can imagine the concept evolving into a service offering with which he or she would love to engage.”