Are you riding your bike with your eyes closed?

Are you riding your bike with your eyes closed?

Welcome to NextGenUX, where we explore the benefits of strategic UX research and help you ride the wave to better innovation. I’m Karyn Zuidinga, founder and CEO of NextWave Innovation.

True story. When I was a kid, I wanted to see what it would be like to ride my bike with my eyes closed. Sounds crazy, right? But it wasn’t that crazy. I was a very good cyclist. I rode my bike everywhere, no hands. I knew my neighborhood like the back of my hand. Of course, when I tried it, the results were fairly predictable.

The question I have for you is, Are you doing that with your product strategy and roadmap? Are you driving blind?

I know you’re working super hard. You face extraordinary pressure to deliver what customers want, maintain velocity, and deliver on stakeholder expectations.

 But you’re in a rut. You, your team, your shareholders, all crave big breakthrough innovation. But you don’t seem to be able to get there. Sure, you are likely innovating all the time. At an incremental level. Maybe even occasionally finding adjacent innovations. But in terms of finding those breakthrough or thought leading innovations, those ideas are just not there. 

The problem is, you’re stuck in a feature factory rut. But there is a way out. Strategic UX research is all about generating insights and ideas. We shift from moving at looking at the user interacting with a given interface to looking at how the user behaves within a given context. And it can get you off that feature factory hamster wheel and drive you to that breakthrough innovation you crave.

Once upon a time, when I was director of UX research at Copperleaf, I led the team in strategic UX research to discover a new product pillar there. And I can help you too. I’m an innovation researcher and designer with a passion for exploring the periphery. I specialize in leading strategic research to drive innovation.

Moving from insight to action, I work with my clients to bring big ideas to life. Thank you for listening.