Explorer browser and, more generally, all proprietary software systems that do not reveal the source code and therefore do not allow decompilation and/or any kind of software modification.

Evolution is both the transformation and differentiation of groups. The study of these transformations and their related differentiations are the core activities of the ethnographic research in our field. In fact, human cultures always evolve, by definition. As a consequence, innovation strategies can contrast, accelerate, and mitigate the evolution of cultures both within and between groups or communities by reinforcing the natural selection of new ideas. Sometimes innovation processes can trigger a cultural evolution. In that case, innovation strategies can help to model behavioral change, for instance by building the right economic premises, such as new niches and new business models, and then guiding the cultural evolution in a particular direction.

evolution, and which directions these changes are taking.

Therefore, it is worth distinguishing between innovation models that are based on the involvement of people in the generation of ideas from the models that get inspiration from the observation of people in their environments.

In the first case, we try to innovate by triggering a participatory, voluntarily pursued act of willingness, aimed at introducing shifting usage conditions and possibly new values (i.e., mutation).

By observing people in their natural habitat, we instead aim to introduce new integrations of existing products so as to foster a better adaptation of existing values to the new usage conditions (i.e., to create the conditions for migration or drift to take place).

In both cases, innovation should favor the natural processes of people’s idea selection so that it can become a natural selection kind of evolution, and therefore resist and endure.

[ 9] Rogers, E. M. Diffusion of Innovations. New York: The Free Press, 1995.

The People-Centered Strategies of Culture Change In our interaction design community we often assume that the Rogers model of innovation (see Figure 2) shows the only direction that market innovation can take [ 9]. That is, innovation starts among innovators and only then can it move to other clusters of people. We therefore uncritically assume that innovations happen because of innovators— say, people who are dissatisfied with existing solutions. We also believe that other groups will be able to profit from the new solutions by changing and/or adapt-

ing their behaviors to the new usage conditions, in a sort of cascading model of innovation.

However, this representation of innovation describes only one form of culture evolution: the most radical one, a mutation brought about by innovators. As described here, the evolution of culture and of behaviors can also follow other paths, and even radical innovation models will still need a coherent strategy to enable the new direction to become mainstream.

As a consequence, the methodologies that can support the two different innovation poles that I discussed earlier are not exactly the same. Companies are often lacking a map showing them when and why they would need these practices, what the right methods are at a given moment of their market presence, and which evolution paths can best foster their innovation strategies.

Innovation strategies should consider the possible evolution models that a given population (or part of it) enacts over its life cycle. Understanding cultures and values calls for longitudinal methods. Researchers observing local cultures and their stable values are necessary in order to assess how the culture is changing under the pressure of evolution models and patterns. Shorter and narrower investigations, which aim to capture elements of culture, can help to probe specific research questions and to assess and validate existing assumptions.

The success of new ideas is always substantiated by a clear understanding of cultural and behavioral constraints, how they change under the forces of

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Michele Visciola is an international expert on usability engineering, human factors, and user-centered design,

with a specific interest in new interfaces, notification systems, scenario design, and the usability-aesthetics relationship. Visciola has participated in many international information-system design projects, covering a wide range of expertise (from aeronautics to naval systems, and from Internet to mobility systems). He has taught digital culture for designers at the Industrial Design Department of the Milan Polytechnic. Currently he manages Experientia, an international user experience design company based in Turin, Italy, together with the three other cofounders.

November + December 2009

DOI: 10.1145/1620693.1620703
© 2009 ACM 1072-5220/09/1100 $10.00