This is an extract from a speech to the Include Conference at the Royal College of Art. The full article is in the articles part of my website www.clivegrinyer.com

There are, as we all know, many reasons why asking people what they want does not automatically lead you to what they would actually buy or use. In fact the world is full of stuff that people said they wanted, but when it came to the crunch, didn’t. It is also full of stuff people said they didn’t want, but when they understood how it might be helpful, or useful or desirable, decided it was OK after all.

There are a lot off innovative ideas, services and technology that does stuff people are not really sure they want or not. Genetically modified food is one example, we weren’t sure until we saw a metre round tomato. The internet might be another example, would it be possible for users to realise how valuable it would become to so many? And, in the technological world, especially the mobile world that I live in, we provide amazing technology of great value, that is often so difficult to find or use, that enormous investment and effort of development remain unused or even rejected.

So there is an act of interpretation required when you take the trouble to include real people, of all types, in the development process. Seeing and understanding what people do, the problems they have, their expression of emotion and what is functional and what is desirable, is rocket fuel to the design process. And by design process I mean the actions that are then taken to create what people want and can use, to enrich their lives, make them easier or make stuff possible which was before impossible.

The design industry has been at the forefront of championing the involvement of users in the design process. Companies such as IDEO developed pioneering approaches to discovering human needs by observation of what do people do, how they get round the problems of inadequate technology or physical constraints, and then connected this to the design process. This combination of observation and design has left old fashioned style gurus beached high and dry and fuelled the success of the design industry. The democratisation of the design process is combined with the desire to identify and deliver innovation that has real value, satisfies real needs and filter what we should do from the what we can do, but shouldn’t.

Further than that, the value of observing not just the majority percentages of users, but understanding the needs of those at the edges of the bell curve, older, younger, inclusive of all human conditions, has led to innovations that are of benefit to all. From good grips to remote controls, we have better products, better packaging, better web accessibility, better trains, better public spaces, when designers, sometimes dragged kicking and screaming it’s true, have been forced to understand the needs of a wider audience.

Despite the wealth of expertise and good practice around us, these are still early days for both usability and design thinking. Ironically we live in a world where it is well understood that the customer is king and that they know best. Indeed the vast amounts of corporate money spent on market research should be a good thing. Companies are desperate to understand what their customers want in order to reduce the risk of investments and ensure success. But despite this amount of effort, we still are faced with a world where countless service innovations flounder and technology remains resolutely unusable.

From my mobile communications standpoint, I remain appalled at the amount of poorly designed technology that is launched upon the world in the name of time to market that simply doesn’t work. I don’t use the term usability any more, as everyone assumes this is some sort of nice to have, I prefer workability, does it actually work, and you would be surprised how rarely people actually think through how services or products actually work before they launch them.

Design is the activity that turns knowledge and  insight into actions, to create tangible responses to real needs. Our definition of design needs to be broad, to include any and all of the decisions that effect and impact on the overall experience we have of a service, product or environment. And this is where so many mistakes are made. Well meaning people, often vastly more technically able than any of their users are, and marketing executives with self defined intuition and a feel for the mass market, rather than the fringe, uncounciously make decisions that will have huge impact on the user. And then they ask for it to be designed, leaving a superficial gloss of brand and or styling. This results in something that I heard described often when I first arrived at Orange as "Lipstick on a Pig", not a pretty outcome and a dangerous one given the huge investments and resources used in creating new technology and services.

There are times when I think that technology doesn’t work for any of us, able or needing assistance, young or old, we all share the same frustrations and difficulties. Any one using the new ticket machines at London stations will have experienced both mental and physical difficulties in what should be a simple everyday activity.

But the world is waking up. It may have taken financial melt down to do it, but the internet has embraced a new willingness to include us all in the design of services and the new rallying call of web 2.0, co-design, open systems and user led innovation has got to the core of institutions big and small.

Web 2.0 is fast becoming applied to all activities, not just those of the web. Faster, more responsive, with direct user involvement. Surly all this will revolutionise how we develop new services. I hope so, but it is vital that now, more than ever, we realise the importance of research and design as two vital components locked together, the knowledge and the action inseperable. For that to me is the key point. People can tell us what they they want, and research will uncover what they cannot say or express. But design is the critical key partner, making the possible tangible to allow that reaction, yes or no, able or unable, love or hate. Showing the unimaginable, the new, the surprising, allowing a real experience to happen, a dialogue with the future, to ensure we create what we want, that works, and reflects all users emotional and aspirational needs. In this co-authored, democratically designed world, design and user observation become the search engine for real needs.

This search engine for user insight, because it doesn’t just list all the possible solutions and ask you to tick the box, gives you the means to make tangible, to appraise, to test, to refine your search until you know you have solutions of real value to all, including your business. Design thinking is a Google for life, sifting and presenting real options for success. Design and research minded people must work together to move forward from this world that doesn’t work, that is so full of possibility and good intent, but so laboured by over technical, majority minded, ill designed, never tested until too late madness, and make sure we get no more "lipstick on a pig" for any of our users.