Frog is a leading product strategy and design firm founded in 1969. Tjeerd Hoek is Vice President of Creative at Frog and believes companies should focus on understanding customer experiences through empathy rather than risk avoidance. To truly innovate, companies must directly observe how customers use their products to gain deeper insights into meeting customer needs in a way that improves their experiences. An empathetic and customer-centered approach can help companies drive big changes that lead to sustainable success.

1. 54 | Issue 7 | July 2014
Discover Benelux | Business | frog design
Founded in 1969, frog is one of the world’s
foremost product strategy and design firms.
Tjeerd Hoek is Vice President, Creative and
joined frog in 2007 after thirteen years at Mi-
crosoft where he last served as director of user
experience design for the Windows and Media
& Entertainment divisions. This background,
which focused on the customer’s experience,
can be seen in Hoek’s current work with frog.
Their mission, he says, “isn’t necessarily always
to create an artefact or product, but rather to
help companies define and evolve their innova-
tion strategy.”
This might involve an organisational change to
make different areas of a company work to-
gether more efficiently. Such restructuring might
seem daunting, but part of frog’s job is to get
companies to change the way they think about
themselves. In EU firms, this might mean break-
ing down the walls that separate different divi-
sions in order to foster more risk taking. This is
in contrast to the U.S. where companies are of-
ten led by CEOs who focus on the experience
and the value offered to customers as a key part
of their long term strategy. It is not fear of failure
that stifles innovation in EU companies, he says,
but rather a compartmentalisation that narrows
thinking, emphasising risk avoidance and a
quicker return on investment.
“Companies must have genuine empathy for
their customers, and act on it,” he says. This ap-
proach takes time and requires long-term think-
ing, but in the end Hoek maintains that the re-
sults are worth the wait. “There are plenty of
ways to analyse data points and cost cutting
measures, but they don’t tell you how your cus-
tomers are using your product. To know that,
you must observe them.” Asking them to fill out
a questionnaire, in other words, only reveals
what the user already knows. To be truly inno-
vative, a company must enter the environment
where its products are being used in order to
form a deeper understanding. Such close ob-
servation leads to the creation of products and
solutions that predict a customer’s needs and
thereby broaden their expectations while en-
hancing their experience.
Hoek believes that an approach which stresses
genuine empathy and understanding of con-
sumers can mitigate the fear of change, and that
as long as companies innovate with technology
to create product experiences that truly improve
people’s lives, they can achieve the sort of big
changes that lead to sustained business suc-
cess.
www.frogdesign.com
Innovation through empathy
TEXT: JOSHUA YANCEY | PHOTOS: FROG DESIGN
ABOVE LEFT: With the NYC Beacon, frog reimagined the payphone to better connect New Yorkers with the city's essential services. BELOW: Unify (formerly Siemens
Enterprise Communication) partnered with frog to reimagine workforce collaboration. Photo: frog design and Unify.
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