Need-seeking: Creating, discovering or recovering needs?

Need-seeker approach, which orients new product development towards the satisfaction of future needs, has been recognized as one of the most efficient innovation strategies to date. But finding future needs to address remains a challenge for companies, entrepreneurs and practitioners, as they lack a methodological framework to structure their approach. In this chapter, we first elaborate on three paradigms for need-seeking: discovery of future needs, creation of new needs, and recovery of fundamental needs. We then provide examples of methods supporting each paradigm, and tentatively position them in terms of reliability and affordability, so that innovation teams can make informed choices in their application. Thereby, we expect to contribute to the field of prospective ergonomics and its concrete implementation, as well as to the promotion of radical innovation based on needs and uses rather than based solely on technology.