A powerful innovation technique is "humanization": benchmarking your product against the ideal human experience, not a competitor's feature set. This raises the bar for excellence and surfaces opportunities for deep delight, like Google Meet's hand-raise feature mimicking in-person meetings.

Figma's expansion into multiple products (FigJam, Slides) wasn't based on abstract strategy but on observing users pushing the main design tool to its limits for unintended use cases. Identifying these 'hacks' revealed validated market needs for dedicated products.

Early user research showed designers did not want a collaborative, multiplayer tool. However, Figma's web-based architecture made a single-player experience technically terrible (e.g., tabs constantly reloading). They were forced by the technology to build multiplayer functionality, which ultimately became their key differentiator, proving the platform's needs can override initial user requests.

Early versions of Figma failed to gain traction because designers, its target users, fundamentally didn't trust the tool's own subpar visual design. This meta-problem highlights that for a tool to be credible to its expert users, its own execution must embody the principles it espouses. A redesign was the key to unlocking user trust and adoption.

Instead of comparing to competitors, compare your product to the ideal human interaction. Google Meet aimed to be like a real conversation, not just better than Zoom. This 'humanization' framework pushes teams to think beyond features and focus on a more intuitive, emotionally resonant experience.

When FigJam felt soulless a month before launch, the team made a controversial decision to differentiate it by making it fun. This seemed frivolous but was strategically crucial for encouraging participation and creative expression in brainstorming sessions, especially during the remote-work era.

Figma learned that removing issues preventing users from adopting the product was as important as adding new features. They systematically tackled these blockers—often table stakes features—and saw a direct, measurable improvement in retention and activation after fixing each one.

Facing a critical frontend rewrite that ballooned from 6 to 24 months, Canva couldn't ship new features. To maintain morale during this "dark tunnel," they gamified the process with a physical game board and rubber duckies representing components, making the grueling work bonding and even partly fun.

The team initially saw the large digital game board as the main feature. They later realized the unique, tangible game pieces were the most compelling differentiator from tablets or consoles and pivoted the entire marketing strategy to feature them front and center.