Expectations from the Internet of Things (IoT) are very high, and rightly so. One trillion connected devices are expected to be in use by 2020, and worldwide IoT spending is projected to hit a trillion dollars by 2022. However, as of today, IoT’s adoption levels and return on investment (ROI) are lower than many projections. We believe this is because many businesses and individual buyers do not realize the promised benefits or expected value of IoT.
Drilling down further, we see that too many IoT solutions today are being designed without sufficient focus on human experiences. Merely articulating the principle of basing design on human needs — but not practicing that ethic when developing industrial IoT (IIoT) solutions — will eventually lead to underwhelming outcomes.
Successful IIoT solutions inject human insight into the process of building things. We have worked on a range of projects to help consumer-facing and industrial companies conceive, design and develop human-centered technology and solutions at scale. Our approach aims to reduce adoption risk, decrease costly rework, improve productivity and compress development cycles. We call this “putting humans in the loop.”
How human insights matters for IoT
Organizations across industries are exploring how IoT solutions add value or lower cost, or both. Examples include sensors on packaging machines; hardware engineering and software-in-the-loop; and sensor-enabled manufacturing shop floors.
Every business has its own discrete, identifiable value chain. Every process improvement — including the design and implementation of IoT solutions — aims to optimize that value chain. In the insurance business, it’s underwriting or the claims process. And even in highly mechanical and automated processes, at every link in the value chain (from materials sourcing to manufacturing to sales and shipping and service delivery) there is a human in the loop.
Successful solution design, therefore, begins not with technology, but with an understanding of what we humans, as consumers, factory workers, repair agents, etc., want and need. Putting humans in the loop avoids creating technical solutions that people use under a mandate, instead of by choice. Moving from human insight to things helps create the internet of us.
Designing to meet human needs
Human experience must be at the core of design; it is important that the human experience of technology is simple, enjoyable and rewarding. But it is harder, we believe, to develop products in a way that meets this challenge. For this to happen, the one change that needs to be effected in product and solution development is the adoption of a tangible, analytical approach to product or solution conception, design and development that is anchored in rigorous research into actual human needs.
Which is why, when it comes to creating solutions for our clients, we apply the principles of human-centric design to identify unmet needs and opportunities. This can happen only by marrying data analysis with the measurable, qualitative insights derived from social and behavioral research into not only what users say they want, but also how they actually use products.