Identifying Customer Needs (What do users want?)
• Identify the users and buyers.
• Gather raw data through interviews, focused group and observations.
• Interpret raw data to understand needs.
• Identify the important / pressing needs.
• Cross check the perceived importance with user groups.
• Reflect on the process to improve understanding of customer buying behaviour.

Generate Product Concepts (How to meet the need?)
• Decompose problem, state the output and corresponding inputs.
• Search for solutions that transform inputs into the desired output (discuss with lead users, benchmark with competing products, take advise of experts, read patents & literature).
• Generate many concepts - creativity lies in identifying alternatives.
• Check to see whether different concepts can be combined to come with an unique solution.

Select concept (Why is it better?)
• Perform concept selection for each of consumer group.
• The goal of concept selection is not to press ahead with the pre-conceived idea.
• The goal is to develop the best concept.
• Refine the concepts to develop the better ones.

Communicate the concept (Do I share my idea clearly?)
You can communicate with:
• Verbal description.
• Sketch
• Photograph / video of previous work.
• Computer simulation of system.
• Physical model.

Why I need a prototype (Check the roadmap to commercial production)
• For demonstrating proof-of-concept to check the feasibility.
• For demonstration – to improve design with feedback.
• To test hardware and later with software.
• For integrating sub-systems into a system model.