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Reasons for Unintended Use

September 27, 2012 by Georgia Konzel   

It is the human nature to be curious about how things operate. Especially being an engineering, it is vital to understand why,how, and for what everything is created for.  O’Reilly says that “the measure of a product’s success is how far it diverges from its creator’s intentions.” Its a little funny that how when a product is found to do more than intended, the company usually takes full credit for it, but if something negative comes out, they immediately determine it as an unintended use, and claim they are not responsible for that.

As humans we also have the desire to make things better. We try to change and play with something until we believe that it is now a better product. Exploring and messing around with a product is the heart of innovation. Innovation is the development of a new product based on the customers needs. Everyday you probably use a product for something other than it unintended use. I personally finding myself using napkins from the dining hall to blow my nose, instead of using tissues. Its human nature to make a substitute with a different product to accomplish their goals when in dire need.  User innovation is the act of the consumer taking a product and redesigning it to meet their needs.

 

 

http://www.oreillynet.com/network/2002/04/16/cory.html

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/innovation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_innovation


1 Comment »

  1. Richard says:

    good sites but the prose is a bit short and unfocused. To focus as you have in user innoavtion as opposed to designer or scinetist driven innoavtion is a good distinction you should make more explicit

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