Diffusion of innovations, part one
Recently I came across an excellent article on diffusion of innovation “How to Have Your Spread Your Innovation Like Wildfire” by Viktor Yokko for Smashing Magazine. The article seemed interesting to me, so I decided to translate it for Habrahabr. The second part is on its way.
We are designers, and we want as many people as possible to use what we have created. It does not matter whether it is a specialized surgical device or something more common, like a smartphone or video game.
We often focus on the convenience of our product. Rarely discuss the factors affecting its adoption. People do not immediately take into use even the best and most practical technologies, their introduction occurs in stages. To settle down, innovation must come into life correctly. And project teams need to consider the convenience and how the product is distributed to people.
')
Everett Rogers (1931–2004) was a professor of communications and rural sociology at US universities. He built his career on the study of the dissemination of ideas and technologies among people. The theory of “diffusion of innovation” is trying to identify and consider the related factors. Project teams (design teams) that understand and take into account these nuances have the greatest chances for the broad and waiting masses to accept their product.
This two-part series will cover the application of diffusion of innovation to digital design and will show examples of how teams can take these principles into account. In the first text, I will take a simple review of the theory and discuss its two main components: different types of users and key steps in making innovation.
Spreading new ideas and technologies among people is a difficult thing. Sometimes even good products can not boast of large numbers (for example, in the United States simply can not use asbestos as a building material for homes).
Bad ideas in action: bans in America
Rural sociologist Everett Rogers wrote in 1962 a book in which he tried to explain the concept of “diffusion of innovations,” the spread of new ideas and technologies. The theory shows how a product will appear on the market, which will be accepted and dispersed in society. Its key concepts include:
Additional key factors are communication (communication), time, and social systems. We will also talk about them in the second article.
Rogers was interested in how innovation in farming spreads across villages. He remarked: while some people immediately started using new seeds or upgraded equipment, others resisted replacing old and less efficient methods. We no longer consider the steel plow a modern technology to be adopted. We will look at today's smartphones or tomorrow's smart watches as yesterday's plow. This is proof of the relevance of the theory. In fact, the latest edition of Rogers' work raises the question of changing the rules of the Internet game in terms of communication and adoption of innovations. The theory of diffusion of innovation is applicable to the creation of both material and digital products.
Innovation yesterday and today: the steel plow of John Deere and Apple Watch
Rogers study describes five types of users. In general, each category says when innovation will be accepted by man. Some labels are common and familiar. Let's go over them and their attributes in chronological order of acceptance:
Most of us have heard and used this term. Innovators - those who are crumpled in the queue for a fresh product. It may even be a deliberately unsuccessful technology (remember only the Laserdisk game console). Usually such people have a good income , understand the science behind the new product, and have a high status in their social group . In other words, they are cool enough not to suffer much if they get something wrong. Plus, they are not going to use this product for a long time. Anyway, something new and brilliant will appear in the future.
Researchers claim: 2.5% of the population of people are innovators . Sometimes they set the direction of development, but the rest of them do not rely on the choice of technology. It is well known: innovators will buy short-term things, and then quickly replace them with something else. For example, Richard Branson is an innovator. Most people will find it hard to catch up with their purchases, and very few will try.
Richard Branson, indecently rich innovator. Try to catch him if you can.
Innovators are not a category of users that you need to focus on if you want as many people as possible to use your product. For example, a very different from the norm boutique will attract the attention of only these innovators.
If you focus on innovators, you need to understand exactly why your product is cool . How do users differentiate it from others? Your design should reflect the social status that fans of new products to their liking. It is bright and mixed with the latest technology.
Your product doesn't even have to be very useful: innovators will simply buy what attracts their attention. However, if your development is not particularly practical, then it is unlikely to go further than innovators, and they will quickly replace it with something new.
Pioneers see the need for innovation or change. They know that they need a specific solution for a specific problem. Researchers claim: 13.5% of users in this category . Like innovators, they have a high income, most often they are well educated and boast a high social status.
Pioneers are more selective than innovators. They must see the practical value of the product before trying it out. On top of that, they are opinion leaders, later they often set the development trend. When the “later” (later adopters) decide to take on something new, most likely this is due to success among the pioneers.
It is recommended to focus the lion's share of your efforts on the pioneers. Focus on them to make your innovation a generally accepted phenomenon among potential buyers. Things that re-solve old problems with high quality and long-term practicality are suitable for this type of user.
First you need to understand what your pioneers are . This can be done by looking at the selected market. Who is actively looking for a solution to the problem? Who is the leader of the opinions? Who makes purchasing decisions and already uses products similar to yours? Further it is necessary to involve users in work. This can be done in several ways:
This will help to inform people about your innovation, to show the product not only to potential pioneers, but also to the early majority (early majority), considered to be their opinion.
These people use first mover tips. It will take a long time for them to want to embrace innovation. This will happen only when it is already tested by others. The early majority has a lower net income, they do not affect society as much as the pioneers, and, above all, they are less willing to take risks . They need proof that it is practical and lingers for a long time. But this does not mean that you need to ignore this category. Researchers claim that 34% of all users are an early majority . If you want to gain critical mass, you need these guys.
Do not focus on the early majority if your innovation is truly unique. And I highly recommend that you include this category of people in your usability tests. These potential buyers should consider your product worth the investment of time and money that they have to spend on adapting their habits. If you have early majority feedback about the practicality of your development, you can take into account their needs in the final design.
A lot of time will pass before your innovation spreads among the early majority. Users from the previous categories will need time to sort out your product and determine its benefits. People may not regard your work as very innovative by the time he reaches the early majority.
Focusing on the early majority helps in demonstrating the product (and later in marketing) and getting feedback . These users must be convinced by the experience of the pioneers that they save their time and money with your development, or they must associate your product with the social status they seek. For example, initially only doctors and important people used pagers. Many wanted to get these things, so that the rest would consider them cool (of course, nobody needs a pager now).
These people are skeptical of innovations and do not think to take them until the first movers and the early majority prove the success of these products. It is believed that the “late” make up 34% of the total number of users . They have a small income, social status below average, no influence on others. These people are not risk averse and will not accept innovation until the previous categories prove its worth. By this time, it will be years since the release of the then new product.
When your product receives recognition from the late majority, your team will already have feedback from other groups. Most likely you will even have time to implement them in your development and update the design. You should focus on providing information to previous categories and new ways to use your design. The original technologies and ideas will not be so fresh. It's time to innovate again. Later, the majority will play a key role in supporting you , while you will work on future ideas.
If your development initially came out with a lot of bells and whistles, you may have to make a light version for the late majority, which doesn't really need them. Apple focused on this category with its iPhone 5C. In Cupertino, it was believed that the price barrier prevented a potential “late” from acquiring their smartphone.
Laggards are the last to take innovation. Usually they should almost be forced to go forward . In general, they are not at all prone to risk, they have low or no income at all, they have nothing to do with innovators or the early majority, they have virtually no influence on those around them in their social groups. Your great-aunt from the provinces, who refuses to use a mobile phone, is lagging. For example, such people refused to use e-mail until the work dictated the conditions for them to have it.
You do not have to create for the backward. They do not voluntarily accept innovation. If your product significantly affects the right users, it will also depend on them, as the resistance of the laggards will be suppressed. This can be through the rules (as in the case of e-mail), taxes or any other penalties for those who refuse to go ahead.
Determining who belongs to which group is very important. This will affect your marketing and how you will explore different categories of people. There is no universal approach to this issue. For example, lagging behind with some old phone can always have the newest sewing machine. They simply allocate their limited resources. Your team must figure out which people are in which categories and how they relate to your product.
Dial Phones - Lagging Choices
We are familiar with the characteristics of users and how to handle them. Now it's worth talking about the adoption process. Researchers of innovation diffusion identified its five main stages. Understanding and accounting for these nuances will allow you to correctly provide the necessary information to potential buyers.
Note that the time spent on each of these steps can take as a matter of seconds, and for many years. It all depends on the individuality of the user. An innovator, faced with something sweeping, will want to buy it and quickly move from the first to the third stage in one day. The early majority may know about your product, but it will take years for a sufficient number of first movers to embrace your development and subsequently influence the rest.
The first step is to let the potential user know about the existence of innovation. But they do not yet have the opportunity to get more information.
This stage largely determines your marketing. How do you get potential buyers to learn about your product? Do they even know that there is a problem your innovation solves? Decide which marketing methods work best. If your development is an update to an existing product, you have an advantage in working with an already knowledgeable audience. Try to make something from the list:
Tell people why the updated version is better than the original or how the innovation solves critical problems. Do not stop at existing users. An update or release will attract new users to your product. Conduct a survey of potential users and determine how best to present your innovation to them.
If your product is first generation, then you have other problems. You will have to find a way to inform still inaccessible people. This can be done in the following way:
You need to cultivate interest around your innovation , show how it solves an existing problem, enable potential users to easily find information about your product.
For example, if you are making a video game or a console, think about E3, the annual game show, and make a release announcement there.
Potential users now know about your innovation and are actively looking for information about it.
Information is very important at this stage. Your team should be ready to meet potential buyers trying to learn something new. Do a research, find out the most interesting questions for your audience before you start marketing.
Place the information so that it can be easily found. There are many ways to accurately “deliver” it to potential users :
The above will help you get a good share of innovators and pioneers. You will need them to get feedback and to model the use of the product to attract the attention of the early majority and other groups.
Make sure your information is accurate. Creating unwarranted expectations is very disastrous and frustrating for users.
Continuing the example above, I want to say: having announced a game or console on E3, your team may want to put up a stand with information (for example, booklets) about your product. Give links to places where you can find videos, codes for downloading trial versions and see advertising materials. This will ensure publicity.
This is a very important point! Potential users will decide whether to try innovation or not. Researched note: this is the most personal step in the adoption process . Therefore, there is no formula for successfully convincing anyone. Everyone will make decisions based on available information, their time, financial resources, competing innovations, their values and beliefs.
The success of innovation is determined by the decisions of potential users. Your team must create transparency during the persuasion step. You are not powerless. You can do a lot to help future buyers:
Answers to these questions will prompt you the method and time when your potential users should access the product.
This step involves the use of the innovation itself. Individuals have already familiarized with it, got access to it, have decided whether they will take it or not. Users will test the product in different situations based on its purpose (for example, daily use in the case of office equipment or several days a year for the New Year tree).
Congratulations! People are now using your product. But not time to relax. Users will try everything you did. All your research and tests will play a role at this stage. If your innovation is useful and practical, it has a great chance of acceptance by those who have come to this step.
Users are finally determined with a decision regarding the use of your product.
The number of users who decide to continue using your product will determine the diffusion of innovation. Development has great chances, if you have done the basic steps described in the previous paragraphs, and correctly addressed all categories of users. It is also very good that at this stage you may have evangelists telling about your product and recommending it to friends and family.
Actively collect information about people who use your product further, as well as about those who stopped doing it. Determine what worked and what did not. Even innovation with a high level of adoption needs some work. Having understood, you will satisfy both current and future users.
If your innovation has not reached critical mass, all is not lost. Your team has an excellent chance to understand and analyze the weak points and how to handle them in the future. Do research and interviews with those who have tried your product and decided to refuse it. This will help you with the following development. Perhaps the problem is something simple and obvious, like the price or the poor functioning of the technology, or a competing product does the same thing as yours, only better. Everything that you find will help you in the future.
Let's walk along the concepts described in the article, based on the incomprehensibly successful and already usual thing - the iPhone.
Steve Jobs in June 2007 at the annual convention of MacWorld announced the release of the first iPhone, scheduled for January 9th. Time and place were strategically important:
Advertising was aimed at convincing people in the gap between Jobs' announcement and the launch of the iPhone.
January 9, 2007: Steve Jobs Announces iPhone
When the product was launched, many users went through the solution, implementation and confirmation steps almost instantly. This was partly due to the ease of use and the applications available to people right away.
The iPhone was immediately an expensive thing: only more or less wealthy people could afford it. But there was an opportunity to bring down the scene by signing a two-year contract with AT & T. Apple has chosen this strategy for a reason. Revenue in this case fully covered the “discount”.
Over time, the early majority realized that the iPhone would linger for a long time and cost its money. This is the stage when the “late” began to gradually take into their lives the Apple phone and other similar products.
The strategy of constantly updating the iPhone is effective for at least three reasons:
On top of that, Apple's strategy spurs frequent updates . The release of new models and versions of the OS forces developers to work on the code and optimize applications for running on fresh hardware and software. Users with older models get less benefit from updated app. This is another reason for the transition to a new generation of iPhone.
Apple has already reached the saturation of the market. Similar devices, like the Samsung Galaxy S and others, took a share from the iPhone. Growing competition in the once completely new market is a feature of wide diffusion. Apple is trying to cope with this by creating tablets and smart watches.
One thing is certain: Apple understands how the diffusion of innovation works and how to adapt to different types of users.
In the first article on the diffusion of innovation, we characterized users and the adoption process. Using these factors in marketing and research will greatly improve how your product is perceived. Not every development will have iPhone success, but any company can learn from Apple’s experience in diffusing innovation.
We are designers, and we want as many people as possible to use what we have created. It does not matter whether it is a specialized surgical device or something more common, like a smartphone or video game.
We often focus on the convenience of our product. Rarely discuss the factors affecting its adoption. People do not immediately take into use even the best and most practical technologies, their introduction occurs in stages. To settle down, innovation must come into life correctly. And project teams need to consider the convenience and how the product is distributed to people.
')
Everett Rogers (1931–2004) was a professor of communications and rural sociology at US universities. He built his career on the study of the dissemination of ideas and technologies among people. The theory of “diffusion of innovation” is trying to identify and consider the related factors. Project teams (design teams) that understand and take into account these nuances have the greatest chances for the broad and waiting masses to accept their product.
This two-part series will cover the application of diffusion of innovation to digital design and will show examples of how teams can take these principles into account. In the first text, I will take a simple review of the theory and discuss its two main components: different types of users and key steps in making innovation.
User types and adoption process
Spreading new ideas and technologies among people is a difficult thing. Sometimes even good products can not boast of large numbers (for example, in the United States simply can not use asbestos as a building material for homes).
Bad ideas in action: bans in America
Rural sociologist Everett Rogers wrote in 1962 a book in which he tried to explain the concept of “diffusion of innovations,” the spread of new ideas and technologies. The theory shows how a product will appear on the market, which will be accepted and dispersed in society. Its key concepts include:
- Innovation - ideas, processes and technologies that users find new. It could be something completely new (as in the case of the invention of a modern air conditioner by Willis Carrier), a fresh approach to the existing idea (Sony PlayStation game consoles) or product launch on another market (for example, 3D movies on home TVs).
- Users (approx. Translators - in the original are called “adopters”; for easier understanding, replaced by the closest in meaning in Russian version) - those who accept the innovation. Rogers distinguishes five types of people, which we will talk about.
- The critical mass is the point when people who embrace innovation are enough for its self-sufficiency.
- The adoption process is a five-step process (according to Rogers), leading to the acceptance / rejection of a product or idea.
- The theory of diffusion of innovation describes the six characteristics that determine acceptance / rejection. The second article and talk about them.
Additional key factors are communication (communication), time, and social systems. We will also talk about them in the second article.
Rogers was interested in how innovation in farming spreads across villages. He remarked: while some people immediately started using new seeds or upgraded equipment, others resisted replacing old and less efficient methods. We no longer consider the steel plow a modern technology to be adopted. We will look at today's smartphones or tomorrow's smart watches as yesterday's plow. This is proof of the relevance of the theory. In fact, the latest edition of Rogers' work raises the question of changing the rules of the Internet game in terms of communication and adoption of innovations. The theory of diffusion of innovation is applicable to the creation of both material and digital products.
Innovation yesterday and today: the steel plow of John Deere and Apple Watch
Users: innovators, laggards and everyone in the middle
Rogers study describes five types of users. In general, each category says when innovation will be accepted by man. Some labels are common and familiar. Let's go over them and their attributes in chronological order of acceptance:
Innovators
Most of us have heard and used this term. Innovators - those who are crumpled in the queue for a fresh product. It may even be a deliberately unsuccessful technology (remember only the Laserdisk game console). Usually such people have a good income , understand the science behind the new product, and have a high status in their social group . In other words, they are cool enough not to suffer much if they get something wrong. Plus, they are not going to use this product for a long time. Anyway, something new and brilliant will appear in the future.
Researchers claim: 2.5% of the population of people are innovators . Sometimes they set the direction of development, but the rest of them do not rely on the choice of technology. It is well known: innovators will buy short-term things, and then quickly replace them with something else. For example, Richard Branson is an innovator. Most people will find it hard to catch up with their purchases, and very few will try.
Richard Branson, indecently rich innovator. Try to catch him if you can.
Innovators are not a category of users that you need to focus on if you want as many people as possible to use your product. For example, a very different from the norm boutique will attract the attention of only these innovators.
If you focus on innovators, you need to understand exactly why your product is cool . How do users differentiate it from others? Your design should reflect the social status that fans of new products to their liking. It is bright and mixed with the latest technology.
Your product doesn't even have to be very useful: innovators will simply buy what attracts their attention. However, if your development is not particularly practical, then it is unlikely to go further than innovators, and they will quickly replace it with something new.
Pioneers
Pioneers see the need for innovation or change. They know that they need a specific solution for a specific problem. Researchers claim: 13.5% of users in this category . Like innovators, they have a high income, most often they are well educated and boast a high social status.
Pioneers are more selective than innovators. They must see the practical value of the product before trying it out. On top of that, they are opinion leaders, later they often set the development trend. When the “later” (later adopters) decide to take on something new, most likely this is due to success among the pioneers.
It is recommended to focus the lion's share of your efforts on the pioneers. Focus on them to make your innovation a generally accepted phenomenon among potential buyers. Things that re-solve old problems with high quality and long-term practicality are suitable for this type of user.
First you need to understand what your pioneers are . This can be done by looking at the selected market. Who is actively looking for a solution to the problem? Who is the leader of the opinions? Who makes purchasing decisions and already uses products similar to yours? Further it is necessary to involve users in work. This can be done in several ways:
- Conduct a series of interviews to understand the attitudes, opinions and behavior of users regarding your design.
- Invite people to the design sessions of your product, they will suggest ideas and what to do to address the problem and how best to deal with it.
- Invite them to become beta testers to share feedback with you.
This will help to inform people about your innovation, to show the product not only to potential pioneers, but also to the early majority (early majority), considered to be their opinion.
Early majority
These people use first mover tips. It will take a long time for them to want to embrace innovation. This will happen only when it is already tested by others. The early majority has a lower net income, they do not affect society as much as the pioneers, and, above all, they are less willing to take risks . They need proof that it is practical and lingers for a long time. But this does not mean that you need to ignore this category. Researchers claim that 34% of all users are an early majority . If you want to gain critical mass, you need these guys.
Do not focus on the early majority if your innovation is truly unique. And I highly recommend that you include this category of people in your usability tests. These potential buyers should consider your product worth the investment of time and money that they have to spend on adapting their habits. If you have early majority feedback about the practicality of your development, you can take into account their needs in the final design.
A lot of time will pass before your innovation spreads among the early majority. Users from the previous categories will need time to sort out your product and determine its benefits. People may not regard your work as very innovative by the time he reaches the early majority.
Focusing on the early majority helps in demonstrating the product (and later in marketing) and getting feedback . These users must be convinced by the experience of the pioneers that they save their time and money with your development, or they must associate your product with the social status they seek. For example, initially only doctors and important people used pagers. Many wanted to get these things, so that the rest would consider them cool (of course, nobody needs a pager now).
Later most
These people are skeptical of innovations and do not think to take them until the first movers and the early majority prove the success of these products. It is believed that the “late” make up 34% of the total number of users . They have a small income, social status below average, no influence on others. These people are not risk averse and will not accept innovation until the previous categories prove its worth. By this time, it will be years since the release of the then new product.
When your product receives recognition from the late majority, your team will already have feedback from other groups. Most likely you will even have time to implement them in your development and update the design. You should focus on providing information to previous categories and new ways to use your design. The original technologies and ideas will not be so fresh. It's time to innovate again. Later, the majority will play a key role in supporting you , while you will work on future ideas.
If your development initially came out with a lot of bells and whistles, you may have to make a light version for the late majority, which doesn't really need them. Apple focused on this category with its iPhone 5C. In Cupertino, it was believed that the price barrier prevented a potential “late” from acquiring their smartphone.
Lagging behind
Laggards are the last to take innovation. Usually they should almost be forced to go forward . In general, they are not at all prone to risk, they have low or no income at all, they have nothing to do with innovators or the early majority, they have virtually no influence on those around them in their social groups. Your great-aunt from the provinces, who refuses to use a mobile phone, is lagging. For example, such people refused to use e-mail until the work dictated the conditions for them to have it.
You do not have to create for the backward. They do not voluntarily accept innovation. If your product significantly affects the right users, it will also depend on them, as the resistance of the laggards will be suppressed. This can be through the rules (as in the case of e-mail), taxes or any other penalties for those who refuse to go ahead.
Determining who belongs to which group is very important. This will affect your marketing and how you will explore different categories of people. There is no universal approach to this issue. For example, lagging behind with some old phone can always have the newest sewing machine. They simply allocate their limited resources. Your team must figure out which people are in which categories and how they relate to your product.
Dial Phones - Lagging Choices
Step by step: the adoption process
We are familiar with the characteristics of users and how to handle them. Now it's worth talking about the adoption process. Researchers of innovation diffusion identified its five main stages. Understanding and accounting for these nuances will allow you to correctly provide the necessary information to potential buyers.
Note that the time spent on each of these steps can take as a matter of seconds, and for many years. It all depends on the individuality of the user. An innovator, faced with something sweeping, will want to buy it and quickly move from the first to the third stage in one day. The early majority may know about your product, but it will take years for a sufficient number of first movers to embrace your development and subsequently influence the rest.
Awareness
The first step is to let the potential user know about the existence of innovation. But they do not yet have the opportunity to get more information.
This stage largely determines your marketing. How do you get potential buyers to learn about your product? Do they even know that there is a problem your innovation solves? Decide which marketing methods work best. If your development is an update to an existing product, you have an advantage in working with an already knowledgeable audience. Try to make something from the list:
- Sending e-mails to existing users about the imminent update or release
- Highlight new features in articles on your company's website
- Make the update free
Tell people why the updated version is better than the original or how the innovation solves critical problems. Do not stop at existing users. An update or release will attract new users to your product. Conduct a survey of potential users and determine how best to present your innovation to them.
If your product is first generation, then you have other problems. You will have to find a way to inform still inaccessible people. This can be done in the following way:
- Current media advertising
- Offer to test your product for free to users of similar projects.
- Provide reviewers with access to your product by asking them to browse popular sites.
- Public demonstrations of your product
You need to cultivate interest around your innovation , show how it solves an existing problem, enable potential users to easily find information about your product.
For example, if you are making a video game or a console, think about E3, the annual game show, and make a release announcement there.
Conviction
Potential users now know about your innovation and are actively looking for information about it.
Information is very important at this stage. Your team should be ready to meet potential buyers trying to learn something new. Do a research, find out the most interesting questions for your audience before you start marketing.
Place the information so that it can be easily found. There are many ways to accurately “deliver” it to potential users :
- online video
- articles and journal publications
- links in social. media
- new site or improvement of existing
- presentations at conferences and shows
- trial periods of use
The above will help you get a good share of innovators and pioneers. You will need them to get feedback and to model the use of the product to attract the attention of the early majority and other groups.
Make sure your information is accurate. Creating unwarranted expectations is very disastrous and frustrating for users.
Continuing the example above, I want to say: having announced a game or console on E3, your team may want to put up a stand with information (for example, booklets) about your product. Give links to places where you can find videos, codes for downloading trial versions and see advertising materials. This will ensure publicity.
Decision
This is a very important point! Potential users will decide whether to try innovation or not. Researched note: this is the most personal step in the adoption process . Therefore, there is no formula for successfully convincing anyone. Everyone will make decisions based on available information, their time, financial resources, competing innovations, their values and beliefs.
The success of innovation is determined by the decisions of potential users. Your team must create transparency during the persuasion step. You are not powerless. You can do a lot to help future buyers:
- Provide a clear message. Why is your product worth its money?
- Ensure product availability. Consider how people will look for it:
- If this is something tangible, will it be sold in regular stores, online or on preorder?
- If this is a digital product, will it be downloaded, bought in a computer store or will it be received in another way?
- If your innovation is an idea, how will it be introduced? Through a book, webinar, classroom or lecture?
- Potential buyers can afford this purchase? Remember that all groups have different resources, and they spend them in their own way.
Answers to these questions will prompt you the method and time when your potential users should access the product.
Implementation
This step involves the use of the innovation itself. Individuals have already familiarized with it, got access to it, have decided whether they will take it or not. Users will test the product in different situations based on its purpose (for example, daily use in the case of office equipment or several days a year for the New Year tree).
Congratulations! People are now using your product. But not time to relax. Users will try everything you did. All your research and tests will play a role at this stage. If your innovation is useful and practical, it has a great chance of acceptance by those who have come to this step.
the confirmation
Users are finally determined with a decision regarding the use of your product.
The number of users who decide to continue using your product will determine the diffusion of innovation. Development has great chances, if you have done the basic steps described in the previous paragraphs, and correctly addressed all categories of users. It is also very good that at this stage you may have evangelists telling about your product and recommending it to friends and family.
Actively collect information about people who use your product further, as well as about those who stopped doing it. Determine what worked and what did not. Even innovation with a high level of adoption needs some work. Having understood, you will satisfy both current and future users.
If your innovation has not reached critical mass, all is not lost. Your team has an excellent chance to understand and analyze the weak points and how to handle them in the future. Do research and interviews with those who have tried your product and decided to refuse it. This will help you with the following development. Perhaps the problem is something simple and obvious, like the price or the poor functioning of the technology, or a competing product does the same thing as yours, only better. Everything that you find will help you in the future.
iPhone: love story
Let's walk along the concepts described in the article, based on the incomprehensibly successful and already usual thing - the iPhone.
Steve Jobs in June 2007 at the annual convention of MacWorld announced the release of the first iPhone, scheduled for January 9th. Time and place were strategically important:
- The MacWorld audience is innovators and pioneers of Apple products.
- Potential buyers had 6 months to search for information to make a decision. And extra time was very important for AT & T, since people managed to switch from their telecom operators.
Advertising was aimed at convincing people in the gap between Jobs' announcement and the launch of the iPhone.
January 9, 2007: Steve Jobs Announces iPhone
When the product was launched, many users went through the solution, implementation and confirmation steps almost instantly. This was partly due to the ease of use and the applications available to people right away.
The iPhone was immediately an expensive thing: only more or less wealthy people could afford it. But there was an opportunity to bring down the scene by signing a two-year contract with AT & T. Apple has chosen this strategy for a reason. Revenue in this case fully covered the “discount”.
Over time, the early majority realized that the iPhone would linger for a long time and cost its money. This is the stage when the “late” began to gradually take into their lives the Apple phone and other similar products.
The strategy of constantly updating the iPhone is effective for at least three reasons:
- Improvements make innovators happy, and devices - modern.
- The pioneers and the early majority can immediately acquire a new model and potentially save money, if the release time coincided with the contract extension / expiration time.
- Later, most can save money by buying a model of the previous generation.
On top of that, Apple's strategy spurs frequent updates . The release of new models and versions of the OS forces developers to work on the code and optimize applications for running on fresh hardware and software. Users with older models get less benefit from updated app. This is another reason for the transition to a new generation of iPhone.
Apple has already reached the saturation of the market. Similar devices, like the Samsung Galaxy S and others, took a share from the iPhone. Growing competition in the once completely new market is a feature of wide diffusion. Apple is trying to cope with this by creating tablets and smart watches.
One thing is certain: Apple understands how the diffusion of innovation works and how to adapt to different types of users.
Conclusion
In the first article on the diffusion of innovation, we characterized users and the adoption process. Using these factors in marketing and research will greatly improve how your product is perceived. Not every development will have iPhone success, but any company can learn from Apple’s experience in diffusing innovation.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/250949/
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