Hi everyone
One of the primary purpose of Design thinking is to uncover unarticulated needs of people.
Now First things first- What are Unarticulated needs- Unarticulated needs are those that people are not able to articulate or does not wish to articulate.
For eg: knowing how much weight will a particular box of chocolate will add incase you have it. Now i guess people will be hesistant in going and asking the person at retail store's cash counter to tell him/her about how much calories/weight will he/she put on incase they consume a particular box of chocolate. But once this need is noticed (lets say by manufacturer) they provide chances of Innovation. For eg: According to the mentioned hypothetical scenario above, the chocolate manufacturer can determine that there is a group of customers who are wanting to have chocolate that does not add weight. so the manufacturer can launch new weight control chocolates at a premium which will cater to these customers. Incase, the manufacturer does not wish to come up with totally new weight control chocolates, having noticed that customers are caring about their weight while purchasing chocolates, he can design the packs having information about how much pounds it will add to consumer. So in this way the customer will be delighted to know his answer without being embaressed to go & ask anyone.
Recently I was on a flight and noticed that in any flight lets assume there are two passengers who are overweight or tall, so they may not find themselves to be comfortable sitting in those cramped seats, they may also not wish to inform the airlines people as they may feel embarassed. So if an airlines operator picked this need up then in one row they may have two seats instead of normal three.What it does it that, it goes a long way in improving the experience of product or service & delighting the customer and converting him/her into a loyal customer.
Discovering Unarticulated needs provide a chance to create new products/services/experience and is one of the core tool to innovate.
Neeraj
Photo source: Corbis
