Lead-user Method

Contrary to much user research, the lead user method does not strive for representative market research in a traditional way; on the contrary, the trick is to find the truly exceptional users. Lead users are people who have strong wishes for modification of certain products or who are already actively engaged in such modification. Often such users are professionals, for instance users of semiconductors or enthusiasts, for instance windsurfers. Basically, lead users are people who are ahead of the majority of users in their population with respect to a given market trend.

In order to incorporate user innovation in the manufacturing process the relevant market trends have to be identified. When this is done the lead users have to be found and involved in the innovation process.

Searching for lead users, however, can be tricky. Von Hippel differentiates between searching for lead users in advanced analog fields and in target markets. One of Von Hippel’s own examples (von Hippel, 2005) is about braking requirements. For the target market of automobile users, an advanced analog market has proven to be that of large commercial airplanes. Due to their extreme braking requirements the latter developed the antilock braking systems (ABS), which where later adapted by the automobile industry. There are many examples of the profitability and increased opportunity for discovering radical innovations by searching in advanced analog fields. However, advanced analog fields are inherently difficult to search because they first have to be identified. Discovering the relevance of a particular analog can in itself be a creative act – it simply doesn’t follow directly from the target market. One way of going about this creative detective work is to get advice from the lead users in the known target markets. This principle of networking from innovators to more advanced innovators is known as ‘pyramiding’ (von Hippel, Thomke, & M., 1999), and it is a modified version of the ‘snowballing’ technique developed in sociology (Bijker, 1995).

Generally, manufactures can utilize lead user activities within their domain either 1) by producing and commercialising the user-developed innovations, 2) by supplying products that are complementary to user-developed innovations or 3) by engaging in a joint innovation process with the users.