Designing Consumer Experience for Emerging Markets & Beyond...
Emerging markets including India, Brazil, China and increasingly Africa represent not only the largest potential consumer markets, they also represent testbeds for process, product and design innovation. From the cheapest small car to the largest selling mobile phone, from $2000 world class eye surgeries to micro-finance that brings access to millions of peasants and farmers, from 5 cent product pouches to 5 dollar monthly telecom costs, emerging markets are home today to some very interesting game changing innovations. It is clear to decision makers and businesses alike that the millions of new consumers in emerging markets are not only bootstraping global demand but also challenging governments and businesses to deliver compelling products and services at clearly differentiated value propositions.
However, for every successful innovation in emerging market, there are thousands of products and services that are unsuccessful not because of their functional or technical limitations but because of flawed assumptions about emerging markets. Life, culture, and context of use for end users in the emerging markets are different to users in mature markets in Western Europe, North America and other parts of the world. Therefore it is not necessary that products which are successful in other parts of the world will also be successful with emerging market consumers.
Given the rapid growth, industrialization, and informationization of emerging economies, it is imperative for corporations, non profits and individuals working on developing products and services to not only be deeply sensitized to the culture, context and user needs of for these markets, but also apply adaptive and iterative innovation methods and to validate and evolve solutions rapidly based on ongoing customer alignment.
USID 2010 will attempt to cover innovation and design for emerging economies from many perspectives. We hope to initiate discussions and dialogues through market makers, field innovators, hands on designers, technologists, creative professionals, students and researchers, public sector entities and other key stakeholders required to foster and sustain ecosystems for innovation. Moving beyond just interface and interaction design and usability, USID 2010 will attempt to span the spectrum of challenges in emerging markets so our participants can learn and apply new insights in their own work and projects.
Stay tuned more details coming soon...
