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Evolutionary vs. Revolutionary
Creating and testing products and services always happens in context. A lot of times, customers view your effort differently depending on whether it is evolutionary or revolutionary. Evolutionary developments, like this bionic arm with six times the strength of the old model, fit into a pre-conceived concept by the user for what it's supposed to do. While revolutionary products, like this hardware device (the SlingBox)for taking your TV signal and streaming it over the internet to you wherever you are, is something that's new enough not to have context associated with it.
And when people evaluate your product or service, they make a call on how revolutionary it is. If it's just an improvement on an old idea, they are going to bring their preconceived notions about the older idea with them when they take a look at your effort
Like it or not, that's the way it is. So many times we write down and plan for all of our explicit requirements for the product or service and completely ignore the implicit or implied, features. And we do so at our own risk.
Personally, when I'm developing on my own I always try to swing for the fences: develop something truly revolutionary. I think most projects do. But there comes a time when you have to evaluate your product against the perceived market niche, whether you think it belongs there or not. When you get to that point, it's surprising what you'll find.
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