Systematic innovation tool Omnivati for solving design challenges
Usually, designers spend hundreds of hours sketching their designs, looking for a “lightbulb moment”, a good idea to evolve. But how to define a good idea? If it is possible to produce good design ideas in a systematic manner? Let’s review this topic on the example lamp design.
The first lamp was invented around 70,000 BC. Originally it consisted of a hollowed-out rock filled with moss or some other absorbent material that was soaked with animal fat and ignited. Later humans began imitating the natural shapes with manmade pottery, alabaster, and metal lamps. Modern lamp designers experiment with glass, plastic, different metals, etc.
In general lamp design occupies a prominent place in industrial design circles. It is considered that every professional industrial designer or design bureau should have some lamp design in its portfolio. For example, Dyson several years ago added to its family of core home solutions with lighting products. But how to innovate and differentiate when the market is already presented with millions of existing designs?
SIT and Omnivati
One of the methodologies of searching for innovative designs is called Systematic Inventive Thinking (SIT). More about SIT here. The five techniques of SIT focus on maximizing the creative potential of the teams by systematically exploring & generating creative solutions, products, services, processes & tools.
Recently I have been introduced to a tool based on SIT techniques - Omnivati. It is designed for both creative and business professionals to invent in a systematic manner. In the Omnivati demo video, they used the Attribute Dependency technique to look for a new lamp innovation. It is a very entertaining process. You may look at the video below:
Applying Attribute Dependency for searching for new lamp design
The core idea of the Attribute Dependency technique of Omnivati and SIT is to create new dependencies with an object, where they don’t normally exist or to dissolve dependencies where they do. In Omnivati the process begins with establishing a new project and listing the internal/external attributes of the object, in our case, it is a new lamp design.
Internal attributes are those that can be controlled by the producers of goods, while external variables are out of their control. For example, for lamps, color, shape, weight, and the use of materials are internal attributes that can be controlled, while the conditions of use, the user, and the purpose of use are external.
In Omnivati lamp design attributes listing may look something like this:
After all of the possible attributes are listed the tool generates a matrix of different variables of our lamp design.
Understanding the potential user needs we can modify the initial lamp features by creating or breaking a dependency between its attributes. By creating dependencies of unrelated attributes of our product we may find our “aha moment”. In Omnivati we name new connections and rate them depending on the feasibility of the proposed solution.
Conclusions of applying Omnivati for solving design challenges
Pros
- The instrument is based on a scientific base with a clear methodology behind
- The tool is applicable for product and service innovations
- Project sharing option and team collaboration mode
- An intuitive interface, other languages support
Cons
- For now, only one technique is available from SIT
- It would be beneficial to have autogenerated attributes and patterns, based on the initial object inputs
- Integrations with professional tools. For instance, Pinterest integration would help to create a designer mood board to accumulate all the design solutions in a single space
Overall
The solid starting point for the innovation platform based on SIT techniques. More SIT techniques, AI-like suggestions and integrations will make this tool even better.
References:
Bellis, Mary. “The History of Lighting and Lamps.” ThoughtCo, Aug. 26, 2020, thoughtco.com/history-of-lighting-and-lamps-1992089
“Finding Your Innovation Sweet Spot.” Harvard Business Review, 1 Aug. 2014, https://hbr.org/2003/03/finding-your-innovation-sweet-spot
