For years I have been pondering the similarities and contradictions among the ways of coming up with new ideas for products. “Design research,” as this phase is called, offers a wide range of methods. The marketing community has long championed focus groups, surveys, and questionnaires whereas the user-centered community favors observation, contextual analysis, and ethnography. Each method has its proponents and detractors.

I have also pondered the emphasis by most practitioners, abetted by many product design courses, to invent novel products and services to fill the needs discovered through whatever form of design research the group practices. This pondering led to my “Filling much needed holes” column in the January + February 2008 issue of interactions where I suggested that although many of our clever ethnographic and field methods are designed to find unmet needs, most are far better off if they stay unmet…