Introducing Spotify’s New Design Principles

The first wave of research, receding now, grew from academia. The current wave is cresting, ready to wash over software design and product management. And third-wave research will reach even higher, moving into product and organizational strategy.Each wave inevitably consumes and builds upon the prior — they don’t end, but become the foundation on which the next wave of research and adjacent forms of higher-order value will be built.

This strategic view of research examines the work in terms of its evolution — how the skills, activities, and capabilities move from novel and uncharted territory into more industrialized and commodity forms of value. (We build on the foundation of Simon Wardley’s Wardley Map framework.)For researchers on the path of practice, teams building research tools, and organizations employing research capability, these evolutionary stages are the grounding context for understanding and positioning research practice: how we invest in, develop, purchase, organize, deploy, and distribute the work.

Let’s take a quick snapshot of each wave’s state-of-evolution as introduction.Wave 1 — The Usability WaveRooted in HCI, the Usability Wave is nearing diffusion into the background of our work. It’s moving into wide acceptance, with ideas and practices that are well understood. Research is a known and expected form of value in the Usability Wave, shifting toward a volume play focused on operational efficiency.

The Product Wave has been building for two decades and is growing rapidly towards its peak, moving from design methods and UX into product management. This is where we’re playing and evolving right now: organizations investing in in-house capability, vendors rapidly deploying new products, consultants offering project packages, and conferences offer content for training and discussion.