Invisible business insurance by design

Can design thinking really drive growth?

Lately, in one of my client project teams, we've been discussing design innovation and its value as a core design principle. While principles like usability and simplicity received immediate buy-in, innovation sparked considerable pushback.

• "Why reinvent the wheel when what we have works fine?"

• "Our team is too small to spend time dreaming up impossible”

• "While we’re spending time experimenting, we could ship a feature our customers could gain value from today”

Valid points. Sort of. But I’m also suspecting we're picturing unrealistic things when we hear "design innovation”.

When you hear "design innovation," what comes to your mind?

Are you imagining 3D glass interfaces floating in space, or some sci-fi holographic dashboard?

What design innovation actually means

Most design innovation isn't about creating the next revolutionary spatial computing interface. It's far more practical than that.

Real design innovation is about solving actual problems in new ways that make people's lives easier and more enjoyable dealing with tedious tasks. It's making experiences smoother, more intuitive, and more valuable for both users and the business.

Think about YouTube's double-tap to fast forward or back 10 sec feature. Such a small thing, but it solved a real frustration: trying to find that exact moment in a video without fumbling with tiny progress bars. Now it feels so natural you forget it wasn't always there.

Or Spotify's Discover Weekly. They used data to solve the problem of "I don't know what to listen to next" in a way that feels genuinely personal. It's innovation that just works, without loud promotion.

Here's why your business can't afford to stop innovating

Companies that stop innovating don't collapse overnight, however, they fade, gradually, often without noticing until it's too late.

While user expectations evolve, constantly. Your competitor who dares to rethink the experience, making it simpler, faster, or just more delightful, will steal your customers' attention and loyalty. Not tomorrow, but gradually.

There are many cases that exemplify how perfectly working systems and markets collapse.

In the early 2000s, renting movies meant driving to a store, hoping they had the title you wanted, and paying late fees if you forgot to return it. Then Netflix reimagined the entire experience: DVDs delivered to your mailbox, no late fees, keep them as long as you want. Blockbuster dismissed it as a niche service. A few years later, Blockbuster was bankrupt and Netflix was streaming to millions.

Same story with Sony's transistor radios in the 1950s. American companies dismissed them as cheap and low quality toys. Sony kept innovating on portability and sound improvements, and eventually dominated the U.S. market.

No innovation means stagnant products, unmotivated teams, and customers who quietly slip away to something more exciting.

Innovation is in essence your growth insurance. You pay premiums now to avoid catastrophic losses later.

“But we don't have Google's budget..."

Most teams can't throw unlimited resources at tinkering with every potentially brilliant idea. Time and budget constraints are brutally real.

But here's the secret: innovation doesn't always mean building MORE or more complex. Sometimes it means building LESS, just smarter.

Here's what kills innovation faster than tight budgets:

Thinking only about what's possible within your current design system, with your existing tech stack, using today's conventions. That's not constraint, that's a cage.

The most breakthrough ideas come from asking "what should this experience be?" before asking "what can we build with what we have?"

"But what's the point of imagining the impossible if we can't build it anyway?"

When you start with the ideal experience, then work backward to what's feasible, you end up somewhere completely different than if you'd started with your current limitations. You might not build the full vision today, but you'll build something far better than "the best version of what we already have."

Netflix didn't start with streaming infrastructure in place. They imagined instant access to any movie, then figured out the path to get there, starting with DVDs by mail. Spotify envisioned a world where you'd never need to "own" music again. They built toward that vision in phases, but the north star shaped every decision.

The "impossible" today becomes the roadmap for tomorrow

Innovation without direction is just random experimentation. You need a clear vision of the experience you're building toward - and that vision must connect directly to your product strategy.

When your team understands how the ideal experience supports the strategic goals, every design decision becomes easier to make and defend.

So instead of asking "what can we do with what we have?", try:

• What would this look like if we started from scratch today?

• How might we deliver the core value faster?

• How might we make the simplest version more useful, more enjoyable, or more human?

Three habits that make innovation actually happen

1. Challenge "how we've always done it"

Encourage teams to ask why current methods exist and whether they're still the best approach, creating space for fresh thinking and breaking free from the assumption that "this is the only correct way”.

2. Get obsessively curious about your users

Watch how people actually use your product. Notice where they hesitate, improvise workarounds, or smile. That's where the gold is buried.

3. Give creativity some guardrails

Innovation thrives with structure. Instead of wild experimentation use clear frameworks and methodologies that channel creative energy toward real results. Establish systematic practices such as regular user feedback loops, design critiques, defined problem-solving methods that keep teams focused on what matters. These guardrails can even accelerate innovation, ensuring every creative effort directly solves user problems and moves business goals forward, rather than disappearing into disconnected ideas that go nowhere.

What this means for designers (and the businesses we serve)

Strategic designers connect user needs to business value. We balance bold thinking with "will this actually work?" pragmatism. We understand that the most innovative solution isn't always the flashiest one, but the one that gets adopted and creates lasting impact.

The business case is clear. When design innovation is done right, the returns compound:

Customer retention goes up

People stick with products that evolve with their needs and surprise them with thoughtful improvements.

Competitive differentiation becomes real

Not just marketing fluff, but actual product experiences that competitors can't easily copy because they require deep user understanding and strategic thinking.

Team morale improves

Designers, developers, and product managers stay engaged when they're solving interesting problems, not just maintaining the status quo. Innovation energizes teams.

New revenue opportunities emerge

When you're curious about users and willing to experiment, you spot unmet needs that can become entirely new product lines or features worth paying for.

The companies that thrive long-term aren't necessarily the ones with the biggest budgets, but the ones that bake innovation into their culture. They create space for curiosity, reward smart experimentation, and understand that staying still is actually moving backward.