Originally developed at Intel in the 1970s and later popularized by John Doerr in Measure What Matters, OKRs have become a cornerstone of goal management for companies like Google, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

But what happens when we analyze OKRs through the lens of human-centered design (HCD)? Let’s dive into how this approach transforms OKRs into a tool that not only drives organizational success but also ensures meaningful, inclusive, and impactful progress.

What is User Research?

User research is the process of analyzing, studying, and understanding the needs, desires, challenges, behaviors, and motivations of the people who use a product or service.

It’s typically conducted to inform the design of new products or features or to improve an existing product. By uncovering how real users interact with a product, user research ensures that your designs are grounded in reality rather than assumptions.

IDEO’s Human-Centered Design (HCD) methodology has revolutionized how solutions are created for real-world problems, spanning products, services, environments, organizations, and interactions.

By prioritizing the end-user, HCD ensures innovative and tailored solutions that resonate with those they are designed for. In this blog post, we’ll explore IDEO’s HCD process in detail, including its phases, steps, and real-world applications.

What is Innovation?

Innovation is the process of creating something novel or improving upon an existing idea, product, or service. It thrives on creativity, experimentation, and the willingness to explore uncharted territories. The outcomes of innovation can be groundbreaking, leading to new revenue streams, improved efficiency, or enhanced customer satisfaction.

What is Design Thinking?

Design Thinking is a human-centered approach to problem-solving that emphasizes:

1. Empathy – Understanding user needs and pain points.
2. Ideation – Generating creative solutions.
3. Experimentation – Prototyping and testing ideas iteratively.

By focusing on the end-user, Design Thinking ensures solutions are not just innovative but also relevant and meaningful.

How Innovation and Design Thinking Work Together

In this episode, we explore why leaders often fail due to a lack of focus, the importance of making strategic trade-offs, and how to create and sustain competitive advantage. Through exercises like target practice and the contextual radar, we discuss ways to sharpen core competencies and make informed trade-offs that align with business strategy.

We live in an era of connection and the consumer marketplace is no exception. Businesses are expected to not just meet the needs of customers, but anticipate and exceed them.

Today’s marketplace is constantly fluctuating and its vital organizations adapt by harnessing the power of analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) to make the necessary changes to survive and thrive.

Having a robust marketing strategy isn’t enough anymore. Asconsumer expectations change, competition becomes moreadvanced, and data gets more detailed, chief marketing officers (CMOs) are under immense pressure to modernize their approach to marketing. This has added complexity to their roles and placed them at the heart of organizational success.

Companies that excel at design grow revenues and shareholder returns at nearly twice the rate of their industry peers. So why aren’t more companies joining their ranks?

According to a McKinsey study from February 2020, nearly 66% of CEOs don’t understand what their senior designers are doing.

While design-driven companies are known to outperform competitors, the tangible benefits of design remain a mystery to many entrepreneurs.

To bridge this gap, designers must articulate their value in terms that resonate with business-minded individuals: through the language of numbers, metrics, and strategic arguments.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore how to calculate the ROI (return on investment) of a design project, breaking it down into actionable steps, examples, best practices, and common pitfalls.