The Human-Centric Innovation (HCI) system aims addressing authentic human needs through a systematic process. Here’s how it unfolds:

Identifying a Valuable Need: HCI starts by pinpointing a significant need within a community. While some believe that determining such a need is a straightforward job, in reality, it’s quite the opposite. Many needs are covert and discovering these covert needs can be more daunting than devising solutions for them. Additionally, needs vary in importance and urgency. Assessing a need’s value entails evaluating its importance, urgency, and the consumption potential of a possible solution. Truly understanding these intricacies of a need is a complex endeavour.

Understanding the Desired Experience: Once a valuable need is identified, the next stage is understanding the experience the target audience seeks in relation to that need. Human needs are complex. They have functional, emotional, and social facets. Various dynamics come into play throughout the journey of fulfilling a need, from its emergence to the aftermath of its fulfillment. Acquiring a deep understanding of the desired experience along this journey enables innovators to strategize how to deliver this experience effectively. This envisioned experience then serves as the guiding beacon for innovation efforts.

Designing the Total Solution: The term “total solution” is used to refer both to the solution itself and how it’s produced and delivered. Elements related to delivering the solution include activities like establishing relationships with the target audience, devising pricing strategies, and delivering the solution. The delivery model should be consistent with the solution, and both should be designed to meet the desired experience. While designing the solution, starting with the desired experience is essential. Once you understand what the desired solution alternatives look like, you can then work on their technical and economic aspects. The total solution becomes a guaranteed success when it aligns with the desired experience and is also technologically feasible and economically viable. However, real human-centricity demands one more thing: your solution should also have a minimal ecological footprint. Neglecting the environment means neglecting the well-being of people now and in the future. Therefore, truly human-centric solutions care well-being of people and take their environmental impact into account.

Rolling Out the Solution Incrementally: With a well-defined solution blueprint in hand, implementation becomes more straightforward. A roadmap can be crafted by working backward from the blueprint. While the design sets a clear direction, it remains flexible. As the innovation challenge progresses, new insights might be gained, requiring changes to the solution design. Due to high uncertainties in innovation activities, it’s preferable to build and deliver the solution in phases. Starting small and expanding incrementally only after validating previous efforts is critical for success.

To summarize… Application of the HCI system for an innovation initiative involves:

Identifying a Valuable Need:

• Scan unfulfilled needs of a specific group and pinpoint most important ones.
• Test whether the identified need is worth solving.
• Establish clear consensus among stakeholders about the need to be addressed and its significance.

Understanding the Desired Experience:

• Research the expected experience associated with the identified need.
• Check the desires and concerns of vital stakeholders beyond the target audience.
• Define the key attributes of an ideal solution from the viewpoint of both the target audience and stakeholders.

Designing the Total Solution:

• Begin with conceptualizing the core solution.
• Model the production and delivery of the core solution.
• Ensure the total solution not only resonates with the anticipated experience but is also technologically feasible, viable, and ecological.

Roll Out the Total Solution Incrementally :

• Launch the total solution with minimal upfront and operational expense
• Define a framework to track the innovation’s progress.
• Build and roll out gradually and refine progressively, taking into account the feedback of the target audience.

If you want to learn more, check out this page!