Insights & Strategy

Are usability and innovation inherently at odds? Here are three ways to resolve the tension.

Our work with MilkMate illustrates the critical importance of user research for businesses.

Now that we’ve established the value of user research, let’s talk about how to do it right.

When it comes to prototyping for the purposes of user research, how to build is determined by what you’re building.

To fight startup failure, practice product testing early and often.

The real opportunity is to allow people to make their own meaning for the brand through their own unique experiences with it.

If your brand helps consumers solve a problem or achieve a goal as only your brand can, you have a product experience that will create a brand evangelist.

We’re passionate advocates for user research and the critical role it plays in product design. But not all research is equal.

Brainstorming can be very effective - if we don’t get lazy. At Delve, We subscribe to the notion of “more brain; less storm.”

The short answer: Empathic design makes us better designers.

Why do we regularly transform our usability lab into a kitchen, hospital room, garage, bathroom, living room? It’s not because we’re filming a movie.

The world is better when healthcare meets people where they are. As the home evolves into a central hub of healthcare, how can we design for it in a way that delivers safe and effective healthcare for all?

Whether I’m validating a medical device or working on the next big thing in VR technology, I always rely on five anthropological principles.

Prototyping for user research is a major consideration of product development and one that often confuses, because it’s not an exact science. There’s always a question of what to test and when, and there’s no one “right answer.”

Design strategists often lead design-thinking workshops for clients using the research they’ve gathered in the field as jumping-off points for innovation.

In a research session, a moderator’s goal is to acquire as much knowledge as possible from potential users of the product based on their experience (or even a lack of experience).

Everyone has his own opinion regarding if and how brainstorming should be done. We use it frequently, but we’ve developed our own technique that is more structured than “stormed.”

What’s the point of doing user research? Why not just design a product based on your own point of view and your anecdotal understanding of people’s needs?

Research enables you to make good decisions throughout new product development, speeding up product development and creating a product that resonates with users. Here’s what research-driven NPD looks like.

At Delve, we don’t focus on design thinking for its own sake, but rather, on design thinking and doing. What does action-oriented design thinking look like?

To showcase the advantages of athenahealth's network-enabled healthcare IT service, we created a straightforward performance assessment tool.

Get to know Jenny Westby, design researcher at Delve.

An innovation introduced today might be overhyped in the short term and underestimated in the long run. How will that inform your approach?

What do ancient farm tools have to do with contemporary gender inequality? According to the Plough Hypothesis, there’s a direct link.

As many as 95% of new products fail. To improve the odds in your favor, put users at the center of the design process and conduct user research early and often.

There are several methodologies available to speed up the development process. Which best fits your needs?

We’ve developed several techniques for defuzzing the innovation process — to uncover user and technology insights that lead to innovation and reduce risk of failure.

Medical device usability testing serves different — and equally important — purposes throughout the product design process, from generative through evaluative research.

We started with a hypothesis for what the agency of the future looks like. Here are our top ten observations that keep proving to be true.

In order to meet the needs of future users, companies must anticipate disruptive technologies and develop a path to innovation.

Delve helps clients develop innovative organizations, teams, and leaders. How can you tell if your business needs Innovation Enablement?

Want to deliver a better patient experience? Start by mapping the patient journey. Here's how to do it.

I just spent six months researching experiential brand language for a client. Here's what it is, how to create it, and examples of great EBLs from Apple, Airbnb, REI, and, as the title promises, Taylor Swift.

Together, we can design a better world. Let’s start by leveraging our unique skillsets as change agents.

How can you help your team think differently?

To achieve societal trust and move responsibly into an AI-enabled healthcare future, we need to put four elements in place.

What if you could plot your impact potential in real-time over the course of your project, allowing you to make necessary changes when it matters most?

Fresh from our webinar, AI & Medical Device Development, we'd like to share a few takeaways from the discussion.

The theme of the DMI Madrid 2023 conference was "The Power of Design in Turbulent Times." Here are some reflections on major themes that defined the talks and the conversations throughout.

With the transformative potential of new AI tools like ChatGPT on everyone’s mind, it’s easy to forget that artificial intelligence has been used in product design and engineering for many years.

A multidisciplinary team has the edge in creating innovative, well-rounded solutions that meet the needs of all stakeholders.

The Delve team explores AI’s place in our product development process.

To understand the critical importance of user research and strategy for businesses, it's helpful to look at real-world examples.

Business leaders need to make product decisions based on real data about their target market, instead of simply relying on best guesses or gut feel.

Microsoft just dissolved their AI Ethics and Society team. What’s a designer to do?

Only about 19% of professional industrial designers in the United States are women.

I am excited about where AI will take us in healthcare, but there are some challenges we will need to negotiate and serious dangers we must guard against.

Is your innovation incremental, strategic, or visionary? Use Delve's Future-Readiness Checklist to gauge your approach.

As healthcare moves toward everyday wellness, new health and wellness solutions will consist of offerings you wouldn’t expect from the current ecosystem. Designing solutions that provide a seamless integration of products and services will entice healthcare consumers.

Consumer-centric care will continue to be delivered faster, in unexpected places, and at previously untenable times of day and night. Companies that can redefine convenience will gain a competitive edge.

Advancements in AI and data analytics technologies, and the healthcare consumer’s increasing interest in tracking and sharing personal data, are paving the way for highly personalized care. To win this race, companies need to deliver deeper, more meaningful personalization.

Companies that provide more meaningful connection at an emotional and aspirational level will attract the next generation of healthcare consumers.

Future healthcare products need to be designed to embody a proactive and preventive mindset. This new paradigm is focused on enhancing our well-being and health in all areas of our life, all of the time.

Leadership diversity matters because having different perspectives and experiences drives innovation and helps companies to design better products. This is even more important when it comes to medical devices, where patients’ health and lives are at stake.

Eric Mackey and Taylor Cone talk about the roadblocks that prevent organizations from embracing sustainability—and what it would take to effect change.

While reviewing the early data from our ongoing research on trends in the medical device industry, three unexpected findings caught our eye.

Within every organization, innovation wants to thrive. Here’s what it looks like when organizations dismantle the obstacles that stand in the way.

Companies tend to become less agile and innovative as they grow. This outcome is so common that it feels inevitable. Good news: It isn’t.

Home self-testing kits have played a crucial role in managing the spread of COVID-19 in the US, but a steep environmental price is hidden in the societal benefit.

Designers have a responsibility to design a world that all want to live in. Here are three principles that can help us navigate the complexities of design decision-making and truly achieve design success.

Whenever your needs require you to conduct user research remotely, these strategies will allow you to answer the same fundamental questions as in-person methods.

Speculative design requires people to suspend their disbelief and allow their imaginations to wander. Here's one tool to ground it in reality.

What comes before and after you walk in your users' shoes? We distill empathic design into six principles for easy adoption.

In 2021 you devoured blogs about looking at old problems in new ways, unlocking your professional potential, and creating products that change the world for the better.

There’s a growing sense of urgency and renewed purpose in the design community.

Warning: I’m going to criticize and question something beloved by millions of people—stationary exercise bikes.

Too many times design thinking projects fall victim to the trappings of innovation theater. Here's how not to let that happen.

A thoughtfully designed care model can support better outcomes in ways that better fit into people’s lives. How exactly will care models have to change?

The JOC method lets you move into ideation confident that you're working from something more than a hunch.

At CES in 2019, Verizon Chairman and CEO Hans Vestberg gave the opening keynote address about the upcoming advantages of 5G.

If your home is your castle, during the pandemic it’s also your office, classroom, coffee shop/restaurant/bar, gym, entertainment venue, spa, and, yeah, that place where you sleep.

Here’s a mind-blowing set of statistics for you: prior to 2020, only 24 percent of healthcare systems offered any form of virtual care.

In early 2020, Abbott Laboratories recognized the need for COVID-19 testing and used their massive resources to ramp up production quickly.

Being home more in 2020 meant a little more down time, including more time for books and audio books.

In the spring of 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic forced us to work apart, Delve’s leadership launched an internal pitch competition.

Since Covid, "water cooler" chats at Delve's three offices are now largely happening on Microsoft Teams, where we're sharing what we're reading and listening to with each other. We're compiling some of the best nuggets into what we're calling an "Inspiration Index," that we'll share on a regular basis. We hope you discover something that will inspire - or at least intrigue - you.

We can always count on the market to push change, whether the players in the market like it or not. Failure to adapt quickly to changing market forces will eventually come back to bite you.

Since Covid, "water cooler" chats at Delve's three offices are now largely happening on Microsoft Teams, where we're sharing what we're reading and listening to with each other. We're compiling some of the best nuggets into what we're calling an "Inspiration Index," that we'll share on a bi-weekly basis. We hope you discover something that will inspire - or at least intrigue - you.

We present "Decision Making and Bias: Your Role in the Design Process and How to Manage It" at IDSA.

Since Covid, "water cooler" chats at Delve's three offices are now largely happening on Microsoft Teams, where we're sharing what we're reading and listening to with each other. We're compiling some of the best nuggets into what we're calling an "Inspiration Index," that we'll share on a bi-weekly basis. We hope you discover something that will inspire - or at least intrigue - you.

I had a manager who gave me the book “Feedback is a Gift.” At the time, it didn’t feel like much of a gift – mostly because her method for feedback was, well, constant. But her heart was in the right place.

We've been doing remote research since before COVID-19, but the pandemic gave given us a great opportunity to hone our craft.

STEEPLE analysis is a tool for scanning your external environment. It helps teams understand phenomena and imagine new opportunities.

For our Delve Talks podcast, Dave Franchino and I had the opportunity to interview a dozen people from various industries, all of whom share a common interest, desire and occupation that involves innovation, creativity and culture building. You can find the whole series here.

For our Delve Talks podcast, Dave Franchino and I had the opportunity to interview a dozen people from various industries, all of whom share a common interest, desire and occupation that involves innovation, creativity, and culture building. You can find the whole series here

In 2020, the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) held its first Deep Dive on sustainable product design. The ensuing conversations revealed a burning need for collaboration between not just designers, but everyone involved in the creation and use of products.

As my beloved country seethes in turmoil over the horrible and unjust killing of George Floyd, I - like everyone I know - have struggled to make sense of a senseless situation, and formulate some sort of coherent comments.

Sometimes having a breakthrough idea is the easy part of innovation. Navigating the organization and turning that idea into reality is often the hardest part. That's why you need design strategy.

(Any Day But) Tuesday… If it was Tuesday, you could guarantee there was no electricity. You couldn’t iron your clothes, watch TV or turn on the lights. You’d do anything to have a portable fan blast air on your face on a crushing summer afternoon, but you couldn’t.

While we're all working in our homes, we thought it would be fun to check in with our team members to see how they're doing and what their new offices and co-workers look like.

I have been spending a fair amount of time thinking about the spectrum of successes and failures related to the open-source maker movement and its contributions to addressing the COVID crisis.

Most products take anywhere from three to ten years to develop from idea to commercialization. But many companies rely on their understanding of consumers today to make decisions for these future products.

While we're all working in our homes, we thought it would be fun to check in with our team members to see how they're doing and what their new offices and co-workers look like.

We are told the world has changed, I have heard people talk about the recent past as “the before” in recognition that we are in transition and not going back. I have also heard people talking as if this is a tough time, that we need to buckle down and wait for it to pass.

Translating research into actions is often more art than science. We have found “how might we” questions to be useful tools. Here's how to write one.

Over the last couple weeks, I’ve been asked by clients and my team has thought a lot about the question, “Should we be doing research now?” We’ve also had to think about, “Can we do research now? How?”

Before starting on an innovation strategy, decide which type you're chasing: Incremental, disruptive, or radical innovation. Each requires a unique approach.

When in-person research needs to shift, try these remote research methods. All have yielded great insights for us at various stages of product design.

Since we posted a blog post talking about how the Open Source Face Shield project had started to supply the University of Wisconsin hospitals with this critical personal protection equipment (PPE), our team has had little time to breathe.

There is no game-theory exercise or scenario planning model that will produce a definitive recommendation. I realize this isn’t particularly helpful or reassuring, so I offer you three specific supplemental tips for navigating your business in tumultuous times.

Generating good ideas is usually not the problem. The process of choosing one good idea and getting it through your organization is usually the hard part.

The Consumer Electronics Show always starts the new year off with a bang. It packs roughly 170,000 extra people from around the world into Las Vegas for a seizure-inducing week of stimulation.

Apparently, unicorns just went extinct in Silicon Valley. That’s sad news for the small group of tech entrepreneurs who hope to cash in on the latest gold rush and build a company with a $1 billion-plus valuation.

Our team spent the second day of CES at Tech West, home base for health, wellness, home, wearable and fitness technology. It's also the hub for Eureka Park, where the scrappy startups vie for attention of venture capitalists and potential partners.

Forecasting and backcasting provide a framework for disruptive innovation by establishing a solid structure to support big, strategic thinking.

Two separate semesters, two office locations, and two roles later, my experiences at Delve could not have been more diverse or outstanding.

As I started to think about writing this blog, I realized that it might come off more as an Andy Rooney rant than “Oprah’s favorite things” this year. It feels like there have been more misses than hits.

How will you decide today what to design for 2030? Strategists look to megatrends to predict consumer behavior and futureproof strategy.

This article is part two of a series about the advantages of an improvisation (improv) mindset on workplace teams. Read part one here.

This article is part one of a two-part series about the advantages of an improvisation mindset on workplace teams.

A list of emerging, innovative technology being developed to reduce carbon, geoengineer the environment, and improve battery efficiency and cooling tech.

Our free, on-demand webinar explains why innovation is so critical in healthcare, and introduces our Framework for Strategic Innovation: Health + Wellness.

Some of the most altruistic of projects create some of the most vexing and problematic dilemmas for the designer as their altruistic aims face reality.

You’re probably already looking up the word “strategy” to see if it’s a noun or a verb. Spoiler alert: it’s a noun.

Infrastructure has made all of the following innovations possible.

I recently hosted a discussion on a topic I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about. Failure. Specifically, the role of failure in innovation.

Have you ever been given a physical tool to help you complete a task when what you really needed was information or support?

As a high school junior, I was shown the guts of an implantable defibrillator. That day, I quit my pursuit of a career in medicine to pursue one in medical device design.

Most design processes start with empathy or insights and jump right into design research methods – forgetting to acknowledge how crucial framing and scoping can be.

Having a foundational understanding of your problem space is necessary for any design process. You wouldn’t hire someone who has never seen the ocean to design a ship, would you?

We've examined key sociocultural megatrends through a lens of medical and wellness consumer experience to single out four profound shifts in the field.

I drafted our very own “common sense/common courtesy” dog policy. I’m sharing it below in case it helps illuminate a path for any other small business owners grappling with this same issue.

We asked our San Francisco team to share some thoughts on what that they find thought-provoking, inspiring and uniquely Bay Area.

The common message spoken and implied by the many purpose-driven speakers we listened to: Find an organizing principle for your company, your project, product or community to move the needle.

We may need an innovacation after this! But no chance... the talks and exhibits are still going strong.

Today at SXSW we dug into the concept of place. Below is a quick look into what we saw, heard and thought.

Jesse Darley and I arrived Friday evening and walked the streets of Austin. We were immediately immersed in all things SXSW. There were music, crowds, exhibits, lines, homeless, clubbers, diners, all of it.

If you want to develop empathy for anyone in the healthcare business, all you have to do is walk the floor at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Conference.

Medical devices are commonly recalled due to usability issues that can be prevented with human factors plans and uFMEAs.

A very common mantra in product development and specifically Design Thinking is to “fail early and often.”

Let’s suppose, hypothetically speaking of course, that a product exhibited at this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) could be used to cause severe bodily harm with a weapon to another human.

If the numbers don’t add up, great design isn’t sustainable — no matter how thoughtful it is. Design must ultimately serve the needs of the business as well as the user.

There is no short map of an anticipated journey that medics can plan for while transporting a patient out of any building to the ER. Each scenario and response is unique.

If you are innovating by practicing customer-centered design, it may be the reason you aren’t getting the results you need.

As we find ourselves in the middle of the holiday season, we join with our friends and family in celebrating what we have and share the joy with others by giving.

Doing user research now won't help you design for 2028. Trend analysis will. Design strategists turn to it to predict consumers' future behavior.

Nowadays, you can see new products and ideas and rate them instantly. Is it preventing us from tackling the big problems?

Pharmaceutical companies are in a unique position to simplify the drug reimbursement process.

When it comes to designing patient services for healthcare, we may have the best intentions, but sometimes we get in our own way when it comes to creating good design.

We're excited to open a new office in Boston to serve our current East Coast clients and grow our multidisciplinary innovation business.

Creative Matrix is a brainstorming method that helps structure the necessary "in-between" work between research and ideation. We demonstrated the technique.

The gee-whiz tech news coming out of Silicon Valley is often exciting, but it's not always reality.

To get ready for the trip, I’ve been looking into and thinking about how human-centered design is best applied to global health solutions.

Co-creation means inviting users into your creative process. Users, instead of being subjects of study, gain agency and become active participants in the design process.

Moving 10 people and a 3,000-pound mill in San Francisco is quite the project. But the end result is worth it all.

I have a confession to make. My co-worker Stefanie used to drive me nuts.

What's the dome of awesome? It’s that place where your expectations have been met (nay, exceeded!) and you are having a great experience throughout.

The world is changing ... are your design teams changing with the physical/digital times?

Our world is in flux. We are all aware of this. As designers, it’s helpful to step back and consider our role in shaping our rapidly emerging future.

Designing a makerspace to fit the needs of staff and students at Lincoln Elementary School took some old-fashioned ingenuity.

As a design team, we are constantly in search of ways to stay involved with the design community and shine light on upcoming talent

In the immediate aftermath of any newsworthy accident, we often hear the words "human error" or "user error".

Psychological safety can be the difference between innovative and just OK. Here are three easy ways to build psychological safety at your organization.

We have a tradition of using the humble whiteboard as a jumping off point for discussions both internally and with the community.

In medical product design, usability research was too often an afterthought. But you simply can’t expect something to look nice and assume patients and clinicians will know how to use it.

One client. Three consulting partners and 100 team members. How do you hold such a massive project together. Here are three tips.

Our new Model Shop in Madison helps our Prototype Specialists stay organized and protected from harmful dust and vapors.

Addressing customer pain points is a great way to inspire design, but don’t miss opportunities to “amp up the good” by addressing the gains that users desire.

For many entrepreneurs and inventors, focusing on patent protection may obscure the need to keep improving your product.

Julie Norvaisas from LinkedIn stopped by our offices to share tips on how they research User Experience to deliver the best products and services.

Take a tour of our new Madison home with one of the design leaders behind it.

Design and dodgeball share a reliance on collaboration.

What does it mean when an Industrial Designer designs a "product?" Nowadays, it can get a little convoluted.

The mindful practice of yoga offers some valuable lessons for design research.

As we move into our new space, one of the project managers shares the process behind the logistics and emotional side of moving.

No twist ... just a great list of podcasts from an avowed podcast junkie.

How do you balance creativity with business efficiency as your team grows?

Our move to 1010 E. Washington Ave. in downtown Madison reflects our commitment to creating world-class innovation and supporting our talented team.

Business people and designers have the same goals — launching successful products — they just use different vocabularies.

Let's face it, technology can enable us to do a lot of new things. That doesn't mean we'll actually do them.

At Delve, we’re always being encouraged to ask how we can make things better, and even non-designers get into the practice of applying design thinking to achieve goals. This culture was one of the reasons we wanted to revamp the experience of our recruits and new hires.

Assigning seats in a new work space can be an exercise in frustration. We prototyped a new way and it's worked ... so far.

A simple, if provocative, question can make all the difference to a project when it's asked at the right time.

We're getting ready to move in August to our new Madison headquarters.

Design Thinking and Lean Startup are two approaches that can co-exist with some creativity and flexibility to create a better result.

During our decision-making workshop at SXSW, we ran a little experiment in decision making that yielded some interesting results.

From the Cancer Moonshot to Bill Nye the Science Guy, SXSW was all about optimism that things can change for the better.

Listening to, observing, and truly empathizing with healthcare professionals is necessary to deliver new solutions that are user-responsive and empowering.

Making the complex simple, or ‘simplexity,’ requires diligence in both iteration (build, test, learn) and designing the system and the details equally well.

Mapping user experiences and systems can help you create more delightful healthcare experiences.

Products designed for accessibility end up making life better for everyone.

Kickstarter and Indiegogo are littered with cool concepts that never hit the shelves. How can you navigate that chasm between vision and reality?

The design of products and services for the most human of needs, healthcare, has a history of being less than humane.

New technologies and processes help us work faster and smarter, but it's the quality of people we hire that makes those tools work for our clients.

A family trip around the world with two elementary school-aged children proved to be a meaningful lesson in leadership.

In the history of product innovation, there are famous successes – some arguably driven by new technology, and others that resulted from user research and insights.

There are several methodologies available to speed up the development process. Which best fits your needs?

Your company probably has 3- and 5-year plans. But does it have a 30-year plan? If not, it may be unwittingly writing its own obsolescence.

After walking the American Association of Clinical Chemistry (AACC), we think laboratory professionals deserve a little more love from the industry.

Satisfaction with customer service hasn't improved since 1976. With increasingly complicated, sensor-laden products, who do consumers call for help?

No matter what your title is, a significant part of your job is making decisions and justifying them to others.

Change brings excitement, anxiety and lots of questions. Here are five best practices for managing change in an organization.

User-centered design is great, but it if your competitors also invest in user research it may be time to do some contrarian exercises for stronger strategy.

The video captures Delvians talking about how we got into design, what we’re most curious about, and what excites us about working here.

Finding meaning is what transforms research insights into insightful tools for initiating change.

Setting inclusive screening and recruitment criteria for design research projects can help yield the insights that will power your product design.

Have you ever read an article about design trends and wondered, “Where on earth did THAT come from?”

What are the odds a new product will still be around in two years’ time? And, how do we decide what to design today?

International travel offers time to knit...so why not knit an experiment in uncertainty?

When it comes to innovation, it truly takes all types. Do you know if your team has all the perspectives it needs?

We did a thought experiment and traveled 50 years into the future to glimpse the future of healthcare and of the patient's user experience.

An energizing day at a Microsoft Accelerator Day for entrepreneurs provides a good reminder that above all, know thy customer.

Delve just published its first ebook on this interesting point in time when technology and society are entering new territory.

Designing and delivering successful connected products requires a whole new set of skills. Do you know your team's blind spots?

Instead of running away from uncertainty, maybe it's healthy to embrace it as fodder for innovation.

Somewhere between a quick brainstorming session and rounds of frustrating debate, there's typically a sweet spot for naming a product.

Believe it or not, the color and brand of smartphone or laptop someone uses is not an indicator of their worth.

In the world of sales, nothing is better than picking up a phone or meeting someone in person.

Want some depression with those Doritos? In a confusing time both socially and economically, advertisers struggle to find the right tone.

"Heads-down time" is invaluable when you're looking for that "light bulb" moment. But then it's time to get out of your own head.

Reviewing restaurants provides insight into what makes some businesses thrive while others falter.

Leading an after-school fashion design and sewing club reveals the truisms behind design thinking.

Technology is making it easier to stay in the home and community you love as you age. That's a wonderful thing.

Do you know someone who can absorb a vast amount of complex information about a problem and combine it into a cohesive, elegant solution?

Instead of a nice story that reads like your favorite episode of This American Life, here’s a few thoughts on things I’ve noticed over the last couple months.

Experience design is a field prepared to help healthcare workers effectively use new diagnostic technologies, but it is a pretty wicked problem to tackle.

A few months ago, I was able to experience co-creation from the client side of things. I signed up for a ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE workshop at Door County Forgeworks.

It's really interesting to see how companies choose to react when they’re under a ton of competitive pressure. It can be easy for companies to get conservative.

Manufacturers that lead the way towards sustainable medical device design will gain significant business advantages over those that sit on the sidelines.

Imagine a future where emerging technology — wearable sensors and 3D printers — are so accessible they’re embedded into most everyday objects

How about smaller companies who don’t have the budget for an innovation lab or the leeway to afford failed experiments? How can they get in on Design Thinking?