Step inside any Apple Store and you’ll see a variety of well-known gadgets such as the iPhone and iPad that are ubiquitous in the technology world. Many people marvel at Apple’s ability to produce such well-designed products, but the road from the drawing board to the retail store is not always a smooth one. Nicholas Nova, the cofounder of Lift Lab—a Swiss-based research agency specializing in technological and social trends, knows that many products underperform or fail completely before they can be improved and ultimately find their way to the marketplace. In his recent talk, “Wrong is the New Right” at the Next 2011 Conference he spoke about the value inventors and designers find in failure.
Before the iPod, there was the Newton
“When we see finished pictures such as the iPhone or the Nintendo Wii, we have a tendency to think these highly popular products succeeded from the outset,” Nova said. The Apple Newton and the Nintendo Power Glove are prime examples of unsuccessful products that led to better innovations down the road. The Newton was Apple’s foray into personal digital assistants (a term the company coined) and it never lived up to expectations. However, Apple would use some of the software concepts from Newton, including the idea of preloaded third-party “apps,” in its development of the iOS platform for the iPhone and the iPad. The Power Glove served as Nintendo’s’ early attempt at a peripheral interface much like today’s Wii controller, but design problems and imprecise controls ultimately doomed the device. Still, without the Power Glove, the world would not have the Wii.
Would the Nintendo Wii exist without the Nintendo Power Glove?
So why does a product fail? Aside from basic technological problems, there is the simple human factor. “On the design side, there is a problem with inventors and futurists who are looking to envision a technologically advanced product because they are trapped in “Zeitgeist”, or the spirit of the times.” Nova listed the Space Age as a prime example. Several iterations of videophone technology appeared during this era, and the concept was even introduced in the late 1960s by the science fiction epic, 2001: A Space Odyssey. But, because of limitations in technology and bandwidth, video communication didn’t truly take off until Skype introduced video chat in 2006.
The key is to learn from failure and not be fearful of it. “No one gets it at first. Innovating is about trying, and the point is to learn. So fail, but fail quickly!” he said. “Beautiful mistakes” can often happen. Nova cited the Tarte Tatin as an example. In 1898 in the Solonge region of France, a hotel pastry chef accidentally overcooked the contents for an apple pie. She attempted to save it by covering it with a pastry base and placing the entire pan in the oven. When she removed the pan and flipped the dessert onto the counter, an upside down apple tart was born. It quickly became a signature dish and now enjoys fame throughout the country. Nova reminds us, “Failure is essential to the innovation process.”
Watch Nicholas Nova speak at the Next 2011 Conference on FORA.tv.