(Illustrated above) An architect believes that the building modeling application that her studio uses needs some key improvements. After voicing her opinions to the vendor firm that created the computing tool, she is invited to provide feedback on early design concepts and prototypes for new and improved functionalities.

A financial trader uses a phone number in his trading application to contact a product team directly. He wants to let them know about some changes in regulations that will definitely impact the utility of certain functional options in their tool.

A scientist opens her clinical research lab to a visiting product team. This team is meeting a sampling of their customers in order to gain a better understanding of how scientists are incorporating their own, and other vendors’, analysis applications into complex laboratory processes.

Who should your team include in iterative conversations about your team’s computing tool? What sampling of voices could represent key variabilities in your targeted markets — including so called “lead users” who often advance their own, local innovations?

What larger market trends could impact your ideas about having discussions with representative knowledge workers? Do targeted individuals and organizations expect to have personal interaction with their vendors?

How might your team get started with iterative conversations during early envisioning, before de facto choices appear in your application concepts?

Could informing participants become full time advisors in your team, or part of a larger network of confirmed but occasional reviewers?

What insights might these participants have into where technologies could provide new sources of value in their work practices?

What ideas might they have regarding desirable changes in how onscreen tools could fit into their activities?

What feedback might they provide about your sketched application and functionality concepts?

What processes could your team create to extract intents and prioritize knowledge workers’ inputs, rather than taking them literally, without any filtering?

How might distilled inputs from participating informants impact the design strategy of your computing tool?

How could thinking of your offering as a service rather than a product change your team’s perspective on knowledge workers’ strategic inputs?

What functionality concepts might you envision to promote mutually valuable connections with your tool’s expanding populations of end users? How might you gather input through these channels as you evolve your product to meet emerging needs over time?

What implications could such conversations have on the brand of your offering? On your marketing methods and messaging?

Do you have enough information to usefully answer these and other envisioning questions? What additional research, problem space models, and design concepting could valuably inform your team’s application envisioning efforts?