Innovation

Speculative design requires people to suspend their disbelief and allow their imaginations to wander. Here's one tool to ground it in reality.

The 'Jobs, Outcomes, and Constraints' method lets you move into ideation knowing that you're working from something more than a hunch.

Being home more in 2020 meant a little more down time, including more time for books and audio books.

The list of industries experiencing huge disruption fueled by “technology” is growing by the day.

Since Covid, "water cooler" chats at Delve's three offices are now largely happening on Microsoft Teams, where we're sharing what we're reading and listening to with each other. We're compiling some of the best nuggets into what we're calling an "Inspiration Index," that we'll share on a bi-weekly basis. We hope you discover something that will inspire - or at least intrigue - you.

STEEPLE analysis is a tool for scanning your external environment. It helps teams understand phenomena and imagine new opportunities.

For our Delve Talks podcast, Dave Franchino and I had the opportunity to interview a dozen people from various industries, all of whom share a common interest, desire and occupation that involves innovation, creativity and culture building. You can find the whole series here.

For our Delve Talks podcast, Dave Franchino and I had the opportunity to interview a dozen people from various industries, all of whom share a common interest, desire and occupation that involves innovation, creativity, and culture building. You can find the whole series here

Before starting on an innovation strategy, decide which type you're chasing: Incremental, disruptive, and radical innovation each require a unique approach.

The Consumer Electronics Show always starts the new year off with a bang. It packs roughly 170,000 extra people from around the world into Las Vegas for a seizure-inducing week of stimulation.

Our team spent the second day of CES at Tech West, home base for health, wellness, home, wearable and fitness technology. It's also the hub for Eureka Park, where the scrappy startups vie for attention of venture capitalists and potential partners.

Our team spent the second day of CES at Tech West, home base for health, wellness, home, wearable and fitness technology. It's also the hub for Eureka Park, where the scrappy startups vie for attention of venture capitalists and potential partners.

We roamed the massive Las Vegas Convention Center the first day of the Consumer Electronics Show, better known as CES. Here are some additional fun things we saw.

Forecasting and backcasting provide a framework for disruptive innovation by establishing a solid structure to support big, strategic thinking.

We have a team roaming the massive Las Vegas Convention Center today at the Consumer Electronics Show, better known as CES. We'll be adding to this blog post throughout the day as we find cool stuff to share.

A list of emerging, innovative technology being developed to reduce carbon, geoengineer the environment, and improve battery efficiency and cooling tech.

I recently hosted a discussion on a topic I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about. Failure. Specifically, the role of failure in innovation.

We've examined key sociocultural megatrends through a lens of medical and wellness consumer experience to single out four profound shifts in the field.

Looking back on our four days in Austin, we were struck by a common message spoken and implied by the many purpose-driven speakers we listened to. Here it is: Find an organizing principle for your company, your project, product or community to move the needle.

We may need an innovacation after this! But no chance... the talks and exhibits are still going strong.

Today at SXSW we dug into the concept of place. Below is a quick look into what we saw, heard and thought.

Jesse Darley and I arrived Friday evening and walked the streets of Austin. We were immediately immersed in all things SXSW. There were music, crowds, exhibits, lines, homeless, clubbers, diners, all of it.

Let’s suppose, hypothetically speaking of course, that a product exhibited at this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) could be used to cause severe bodily harm with a weapon to another human.

If you are innovating by practicing customer-centered design, it may be the reason you aren’t getting the results you need.

I’m one of those designers who is always searching for the latest technology or process to help trigger new ideas or new ways of doing things.

As far as I can remember cycling has always been a part of my life in some form or another.

Alec Hill, a biomedical engineering grad student from UW-Madison, and Alex Upadhyaya, an Industrial Designer from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, were half of the 2018 summer intern team at Delve.

I had my first virtual reality (VR) experience at an arcade called Aladin’s Castle located in the Brookfield Square Mall in suburban Milwaukee in 1991.

Creative Matrix is a brainstorming method that helps structure the necessary "in-between" work between research and ideation. We demonstrated the technique.

I am both inspired and annoyed by the innovation stories that regularly come out of Silicon Valley.

Jonathan Spangler feels like he has played “Folsom Prison Blues” to more audiences than anyone in history.

Co-creation in the design world might take several forms, but most often it's in the form of a moderated co-workshop that brings together designers, users, and client stakeholders.

I have a confession to make. My co-worker Stefanie used to drive me nuts.

When I’ve said “dome of awesome” to people, they generally respond with something like, “What is it? I want it. I want to be in the dome of awesome!”

Theresa Emanuel was born in 1877, before electricity and cars. Back then outhouses, horse and buggy, candles, and quill pens were everyday parts of life.

The end of a culturally and socially tumultuous 2017 and this year’s Consumer Electronics Show provides a great reason to take stock of the previous year in the world of design.

One of the main focuses of the Health 2.0 conference in Santa Clara, CA this year was on data.

Many of our clients, from startups to multi-national medical device manufacturers, pursue patents on the products and services we help them design.

Julie Norvaisas, who is my sister (learn more about sisters in research in this blog), co-founder of Design Strategy and Research at Design Concepts, and now Director of User Experience Research (UER) at LinkedIn, joined us recently to share her perspective on how she approaches user experience research at LinkedIn.

I recently read a Pew report on the future of the Internet of Things, full of opinions on how people may choose to adopt or reject IoT products and services based on security, convenience and richness of experience, among others.

I remember the first time my business partner, design strategist Stefanie Norvaisas, was critiquing a meeting presentation and challenged the presenter with “So what?” on an important slide.

Rapid invention and evolution in the state-of-the-art have made it difficult to stay versed in the ever-growing variety of components, devices, and technologies that could be used in the design of a product.

My colleague Roshelle Ritzenthaler and I recently presented at South by Southwest on “How to Give Design a Seat at the Lean Startup Table.” There was a line around the corner for our talk, which tells me this is a topic on a lot of designers' minds.

Stefanie Norvaisas and I recently returned from an amazing trip to South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, where we had the opportunity to host a workshop on Designing Decisions.

It can feel like the world is changing at lightning speed and at the same time it can feel like nothing has changed.

How do you design better products for women? Our female researchers, designers & engineers compiled 7 ideas for individuals and companies to consider.

Accessible, also called assistive, designs that consider the needs of the disabled are often adopted more widely as others find new uses for them.

The design of products and services for the most human of needs, healthcare, has a history of being less than humane.

Innovation is risky business. It is expensive and time consuming. The faster you move, the longer you can survive.

Humans aren’t so hot at assessing risk.

I recently attended the first Big Data Wisconsin conference, which was part of Madison’s larger Forward Festival.

Delve, formerly Design Concepts, has been named a winner in the 36th annual International Design Excellence Awards® (IDEA®) conducted by the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA).

No matter what your title is, a significant part of your job is making decisions and justifying them to others.

Crafting a product, department or corporate strategy never happens in a bubble. It’s an ever-moving target because of trends in the marketplace, shifts in consumer behavior, and competitive actions.

If you’re developing a product, you’ve probably come across the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) approach.

Have you ever read an article about design trends and wondered, “Where on earth did THAT come from?”

Innovation is tricky business, so is working in teams.

The Solid Conference – Hardware, Software & the Internet of Things (solidcon.com), recently held in San Francisco, is touted as a revolutionary conference that goes beyond the Internet of Things.

I recently attended the O’Reilly Solid Conference in San Francisco, a fascinating few days examining hardware, software and the Internet of Things (IoT).

I love the energy in the new product development space.

At Design Concepts, we live and breathe innovation every day. It's our job and our passion.

Designing and delivering connected products and the transition to the Internet of Things (IoT) is today’s product development frontier.

I’ve spent the week breaking in a spiffy new Samsung Galaxy S6 smartphone. Meh. It’s … fine.

I was lucky enough to be selected to participate in the inaugural VergeNYC conference hosted by Parsons School of Design where the theme was “Action in the Face of Uncertainty.”

Want to experience connected Zen? Grab a Lyft, the ride sharing service fueled by digital transactions.

Hmmm… am I more hungry than unwilling to get cold?

I was recently at the Interaction15 conference put on by the Interaction Design Association (IxDA) in San Francisco with my colleagues Ken Soliva and Curt Irwin.

We’re on the verge of a fascinating intersection—perhaps collision—as the world of Internet of Things (IoT) technology begins to deeply encroach into the world of medical device development.

CES 2015 (Consumer Electronics Show) wasn’t a year for big unveils and shifts in conversation. Everything was smart, everything had an app, and the Internet of Everything was still an overarching promise for the future.

Do you know someone who can absorb a vast amount of complex information about a problem and combine it into a cohesive, elegant solution?

A couple of weeks back I had one of those great experiences that makes this job absolutely unbeatable. We had the chance to visit a client who is wrapping up final testing on the prototype of a product on which we collaborated. Unfortunately, confidentiality still reigns on this project so I need to keep the exact client and project under wraps. But it looks like they’re pretty close to springing it on the market – and we’re pretty sure it’s going make a huge impact. It doesn’t just look and work great — it completely rethinks the industry. In short, it’s a wow.

“Dori-toes snack foot!” design strategist Dan Sarbacker announced proudly holding a half-sheet sharpie sketch.