Three of these visions are particularly present in today’s world and coexist, sometimes even within a project. Companies have several departments that each have their vision of the innovations produced.

The engineering vision:

Engineers hold knowledge that others do not. They understand the technology, talk to the machines, create objects and digital objects.
Engineers have a technocentric vision of innovation. Their objective is technological progress, it is an end in itself.

Technological progress does not need to have any interest or application, it needs to push the limits of what we already do.

Computers are getting more and more powerful, not least because we are constantly pushing the limits of what they can do. At first sight, some innovations seem absurd, what is the point of having a USB key of several terabytes; what is the point of increasingly powerful graphics cards if the human eye can no longer tell the difference?

There is no interest today, but these innovations open up possibilities that we didn’t have before. An interest can be found later.
It is a vision appreciated because of the myth of the self made man, the person who invents alone in his garage an object that will revolutionize all our lives.

The marketing vision

In marketing, innovations are products that need to be sold. The most famous sentence of young entrepreneurs is “a product must meet a need”. The need here refers to something we want, most often to have a certain comfort of life or use.

It is a market and niche vision.

It is the most common strategy and vision, because it allows for economic benefits to innovation. The focus is on the public and why they would want to buy something; unlike the engineering vision which does not focus on profit and whose inventions can take decades to be adopted by a public.

The marketing vision of innovation is less oriented towards technological progress and more towards progress in use. A product can exist for years and be replaced by another that offers the same thing but in a different way.

Skype has been replaced by many competitors that offered a service better suited to group telecommuting during confinements. Many well-known companies offered a service similar to a competitor but with an added touch that appealed to consumers.

Identifying needs is a complex task because people are not always aware of what they need and want, or why they want it. It is up to the entrepreneurs to answer these questions.

We have to be careful to justify our ideas, because we tend to have prejudices about certain groups. By following these prejudices, we risk trying to meet a non-existent need and making a flop.

For example, many anti-fall products exist for isolated elderly people. But most of these products don’t work, because it’s not something they are concerned about, they don’t feel the need for it and therefore don’t use it.

The ergonomic vision

The ergonomics vision of innovation is to design for users. It is a so-called anthropocentric vision

This vision differs from the two previous ones:
It is necessary to identify the needs of the users, but also the conditions in which they will accept a solution that forms a set of constraints.
New technologies are not necessarily the solution to users’ needs.

Technological responses must be consistent with what users want.
There are a thousand ways to meet a need, but far fewer that users will accept. It is therefore necessary to list the points that will constrain the chosen solution. The notion of acceptability is essential in ergonomics, much more than design.

These constraints can be cultural, can be secondary needs or fears to be removed and there are certain standards to respect.

Voice assistants have been a great technological advance, but the lack of discretion and confidentiality have limited their use.
The question to ask is “how would you like things to be?”. Again, you have to read between the lines, as individuals surveyed will tend to conjure up ready-made solutions in their answers because they are holding on to what they know

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have told me faster horses.”
Henry Ford, quoted by Steve Jobs

The answers brought by this vision are generally very efficient but not necessarily revolutionary because very often the best solutions are organizational rather than technological.

To limit traffic jams, making regular and numerous bus and train lines will be more efficient than inventing a flying car.

The anthropocentric, technocentric or market visions coexist. There is not one better than the other, only different sensibilities. Entrepreneurs often have a market vision, their engineers a technocentric vision and ergonomists and designers an anthropocentric vision, which is in line with their respective goals.