Innovative: Widening the Use Case
To often, we can fall into the trap that “innovative” must be something net new – never seen before. However, some of the most innovative solutions I have seen have been from people who either found a new use case for an existing product, or they widened an existing product’s use case.
Let me give a couple of examples.
First example:
Our household includes wheelchairs, lifts, and other assistive devices. As recent participants in this world, we are still constantly shocked by the ho hum products, sky-high prices, and limited variety of assistive devices. Last year while researching for “something to help us”, I came across a truly innovative small business. They were selling ladies clothing for wheelchair users. In case you don’t know, wheelchairs are very hot, and sweat is not just an uncomfortable reality – it is a significant health risk too.
Their supplier?
They get their clothing from a company who manufactures clothes for perimenopausal women. This company had designed sweat wicking and heat dissipating clothing for their target market. Finding a new use case for this product line not only increased the market for the supplier but brought a breath of fresh design into the world of wheelchair users.
Second example:
I would like to congratulate Mastercard Canada and CIBC for bringing the CIBC Adapta Mastercard to market. While this card is marketed for its adaptable rewards program, which is itself innovative, it carries another adaptable feature that I find truly innovative - The Touch Card by Mastercard.
As noted in this Mastercard video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7WJlthEF-A), the Touch Card was designed specifically for vision impaired cardholders. However, CIBC has included the Touch Card feature into the design of all their Adapta cards instead of making the it a special-order item for a small demographic.
This is an innovative win for CIBC. Vision impaired people can now sign up for a regular card product that accommodates them. However, CIBC has positioned themselves well for the widened use case for the Touch Card. I think this feature will quickly become appreciated by all card users as it will provide them tactile card identification – something we may not have known we would need and appreciate. This is an opinion shared by the reviewers at Nerdwalled.com (https://www.nerdwallet.com/ca/p/reviews/credit-cards/cibc-adapta-mastercard-review).
Hopefully, this CIBC and Mastercard innovation will become a standard design feature in future card products from all issuers and card networks.
(Yes, but if everyone adopts the Touch Card features, it won’t be innovative anymore! This is true and it will be the topic of my next blog post.)
Expanded use cases can be as innovative as new products. New use cases can breathe fresh air into the development possibilities and future adaptations of an existing product. And the funny thing is. . . as the product adapts to its expanded market, the original users may appreciate and enjoy these improvements they never had known they would need and enjoy.