In Common Good: Meryn Stol voted up an answer. Jacob Wheadon There are a number of methods that product designers employ when trying to come up with new ideas. Most are fairly similar and all have to do with observing people. My preferred method is the Jobs-To-Be-Done approach used by Innosight, an innovation consulting firm based in Boston. It basically entails thinking of products not as things that people own, but as things that people hire to do certain jobs. When you observe people and their interactions with products in that light, you quickly see that many products aren't completely aligned with the job the person is hiring them to do. You may find that many people doing different jobs are hiring one product to do them all (and none of the jobs are getting done as well as they could). This provides opportunities to offer a new product that more specifically addresses the job. This same type of observation will also help you see people that need a job done but don't have the... - Meryn Stol