Summary
In this chapter, Hippel explores the many benefits of toolkits for developers and innovators. Like Ockham’s Razor, the explanation is simple: toolkits allow average users to tailor custom a product to their specifications without requiring extensive knowledge from the user. It also saves time in developing the product because of its ease of use – in fact, development time for custom semiconductors were cut by 2/3 or more when using toolkits, instead of building them manually.
Von Hippel argues that ‘toolkits’ are not new: any engineering firm/company in any point in time have utilized their own set of tools to create products they specialized in. The present-day user toolkits differ in that they were created for users without the extensive back knowledge needed to create work intensive design projects. With this in mind, there are five important attributes: 1) it enables learning through trial/error 2) have enough flexible options to create the product they want 3) have a low learning curve 4) contain libraries and modules that are required to make custom designs 5) the creations made on the system must be manufacturable on a production scale.
The rest of the chapter goes on to describe each of the 5 requirements in detail, but Hippel’s point is clearly made: toolkits help innovation in allowing ease of use and efficiency for users wanting to create custom product.
Reflection
As far as the message of the chapter goes, it seems pretty simple and straight-forward: toolkits are inherently good for user innovation because it creates an easy to use interface for product design. Although Von Hippel does not give any examples of products, there are plenty that I can think of: one that stands out is Adobe Photoshop. Much like Paint having more than one option for brushes, Photoshop
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