Defining a product characteristic framework of excellence for meaning-driven radical innovation

In recent years, meaning-driven radical innovation has attracted more widespread attention from design researchers than technology-driven radical innovation. This study aimed to better understand the essence of meaning-driven radical innovation. We compared 119 meaning-driven radical products selected from the 100 Great Designs of Modern Times (published by Fortune in 2020) as well as from three international design awards—the International Design Excellence Awards, Red Dot Product Design, and iF Product Design—with similar products during the same period on the market. We defined a product characteristic framework for meaning-driven radical innovation, including five categories: version, function, experience, scope, and architecture. The percentage of each category was analysed using the comments accompanying the winning of the awards. The results showed that meaning-driven radical products had significantly more vision and experience category characteristics than similar products.