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4.4: Key Terms

  • Page ID
    50773
    • Michael Laverty and Chris Littel et al.
    • OpenStax
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    brainstorming
    generation of ideas in an environment free of judgment or dissension with the goal of creating solutions
    creativity
    development of original ideas
    design thinking
    method to focus the design and development decisions of a product on the needs of the customer, typically involving an empathy-driven process to define complex problems and create solutions that address those problems
    diffusion chasm
    most critical point of adoption, which often occurs at the end of the early adoption phase, before the early majority steps in and truly confirms (or not) the diffusion of an invention
    disruptive innovation
    process that significantly impacts the market by making a product or service more affordable and/or accessible often by smaller companies in an industry
    empathy
    human ability to feel what other humans are feeling, which in the context of creativity, innovation, and invention is essential to beginning a process of human-centric design
    ideation
    purposeful process of opening up one’s mind to new trains of thought that branch out in many directions from a stated purpose or problem
    incremental innovation
    innovation that modifies an existing product or service
    innovation
    new idea, process, or product, or a change to an existing product or process
    invention
    truly novel product, service, or process that, though based on ideas and products that have come before, represents a leap, a creation truly novel and different
    iterative development
    process in which inventors and innovators continuously engage with potential customers in order to develop their products and their consumer bases at the same time
    lateral thinking
    free and open thinking in which established patterns of logical thought are purposefully ignored or even challenged
    linear thinking
    logical, step-by-step process
    minimum viable product (MVP)
    early version or prototype of a product that may not be polished or complete but that functions well enough that you can begin to market it or test it with potential users
    open innovation
    searching for and finding solutions outside of the organizational structure
    pain point
    problem that people have with a product or service that might be addressed by creating a modified version that solves the problem
    pioneering innovation
    one based on a new technology, a new advancement in the field, and/or an advancement in a related field that leads to the development of a new product
    scientific method
    most often associated with the natural sciences, outlines the process to discover an answer to a question or a problem
    user interface
    what the user sees and interacts with

    This page titled 4.4: Key Terms is shared under a CC BY 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Michael Laverty and Chris Littel et al. (OpenStax) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.