|
 Berlin, Germany - At this year’s IFA trade fair in Berlin,
Philips Research will present its new online
research environment – SimplicityLabs. This virtual
environment allows people worldwide to experiment
with new software-based product concepts in the
comfort of their own homes. An extension of Philips’
consumer-focused research, SimplicityLabs enables
Philips Research to harness end-user feedback at a
very early stage in the innovation process and
validate new concepts in a way that is fast,
efficient and cost-effective.
How it works
For each selected product concept, a product mock-up
or software prototype is placed in the online
SimplicityLabs for people to experiment with. In
this way, people can actually try out the product
concept features. Wide-reaching and quick feedback
is then gathered on key issues, such as whether or
not people like the concept, which functions are
popular and which could be improved. This feedback
is both explicit (i.e., people fill in a
questionnaire about the concept) and implicit (i.e.,
the system records how people actually interact with
the mock-up or prototype). “Once we’ve gathered and
interpreted this data, we can make all the
improvements necessary to turn the online product
concept into a real, consumer-focused product that,
we expect, people will love,” says Fred Boekhorst,
Senior Vice-President Philips Research and Program
Manager Lifestyle.
At the IFA, attendees will be invited to experience
new technology concepts that Philips is currently
testing in its SimplicityLabs. One of these concepts
is Personal TV Channels, which was outlined during
IFA last year. This is a patented recommendation
technology of Philips that finds, filters and
delivers content from different media directly to
the viewer's TV screen. This solution is perfect for
players in the TV, multimedia and advertising
industry to fulfill one mission - provide
personalized TV entertainment and advertising to the
end user. The gathered feedback on this and the
other concepts in SimplicityLabs is used to further
optimize the product concepts.
The next step in ‘experience’ research
Like Philips Research’s ExperienceLab,
SimplicityLabs places the consumer at the very heart
of the innovation process. Therefore, it will play
an important role in Philips’ drive to include
end-user feedback into its research towards new
concepts and products. “Of course, we already have
many initiatives that do this, for instance in
ExperienceLab. But what’s new about SimplicityLabs
is that people can join in the experiments at any
time, from anywhere, as it is targeted to concepts
that can be tested in a virtual environment,” says
Boekhorst. This, Philips expects, will boost take-up
rates and provide faster and richer consumer
feedback in the early phases of product concept
development. “In the longer term, we expect
SimplicityLabs will make a significant contribution
to steering our innovation process and to ensuring
that products in our portfolio are based on
existing, wide-ranging consumer needs.”
Visitors at IFA can join the experiments in
SimplicityLabs in the Future Zone which is situated
on the Philips stand, hall 22.
SimplicityLabs can be found at
http://www.simplicitylabs.net
|
