Journal publication · 2022
Wang, G. (2022). Digital reframing: The design thinking of redesigning traditional products into innovative digital products. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 39(1), 95–118. https://doi.org/10.1111/jpim.12605
Explore the original contribution
Interactive paper explorationFrame taking
Use digital technologies as a context for questioning what the firm currently offers.
Frame merging
Combine digital and physical components while working through their conflicting design logics.
Frame giving
Bring the digital offering to the fore and establish a frame that helps customers interpret the new product.
Digital innovation research often focused on creating innovative digital technologies, or began after designers had already decided what overarching product to build. Reframing was commonly depicted as replacing an old overall frame with a new one.
The paper develops digital reframing as frame taking, frame merging, and frame giving. Designers enact digital technologies as context, component, and offering, using them to rethink traditional products rather than simply add functions.
Rethink the traditional product before deciding what to build.
Reconcile digital and physical frames in the emerging design.
Make the resulting whole intelligible to customers.
The paper’s three stages and enacted technology roles. A guided reading of the process, not a predictive model.
Concept explorer
Select a concept to see its role in this paper’s contribution.
Extract frames from digital technologies to rethink traditional products and identify new problems and solutions.
Reconcile and integrate frames embedded in digital technologies and physical products; neither automatically dominates.
Propose the new product’s whole frame so customers can understand and appreciate its innovativeness.
Three roles enacted by digital technologies for different reframing purposes; the same technology may play different roles.
Frame taking brings into view the stage before a firm chooses its overarching product. Existing technologies can reveal both previously unrecognised problems and new possibilities.
Theoretical aggregation, p. 110; research implications, p. 112.
Frame merging explains how old and new frames coexist and take turns directing hybrid product design. Frame giving treats reshaping customer understanding as integral to that design.
Research implications, pp. 112–113.
Investigate the broader technology landscape and what it implies for traditional products before committing to one technology. The opportunity can lie in reflective reuse.
Practitioner points, p. 96; practical implications, p. 113.
Design artifacts and tools embed prior frames. Reflect on whether their assumptions fit the emerging product, rather than treating their use as evidence that design thinking is happening.
Practical implications, p. 113.
Why this matters
The model gives firms a way to investigate innovation opportunities even when their available technologies are familiar. It also exposes how early technology choices can restrict subsequent thinking.
Discuss this researchGrounded theory from TopTech’s four-year digital-theatre design project, with interviews, observation, and archival material. The stages may be distributed across firms in customer-specified projects; retrospective accounts and the single case limit generalisation.
Grounded theory method, research setting, interviews, observation, and coding.
Three stages, the technology roles, and Figure 4.
Research and practice implications and single-case limitations.
This exploration is based on the author-supplied full text. It distinguishes the paper’s own contribution from established concepts it draws on. For formal citation, consult the publication.