You can ask your customers what they want but they can only give you insight into the incremental improvement that they are concerned with their immediate needs. They do not have your aggregated insight across all your customers, solutions, and technology innovations. YOU are the solution provider.
You may guess what customers want – but it’s just guessing… It could be smart guesses based on industry standards and design best practices – but there is no guarantee that this is what your customers want or need.
The only way to innovate is to watch your customers use your solution – to learn all the things that they cannot verbally articulate. Ask them why they made the choices they did in that moment to gain contextual insights. Watch for opportunities to introduce game-changing innovations.
Vet your assumptions early in the process with your target market. Conduct iterative design reviews with stakeholders to validate your design meets business needs and evaluate your solutions with the actual people that are using the solution.