User needs are the cornerstones of all successful user experience innovation. If your product, solution, or functionality does not cover existing or latent needs of the target users, then all your efforts in creating a great user experience for this solution may well be wasted. In other words, your user experience innovation will never be successful unless you cover an existing or latent end-user need.

If you create a device that end users do not need, it will not sell. If you design a function for your word-processing software that users do not need, that function will never be used. If you create functionality or services on your web page that the user does not see any value or need for, these will not be used.

This may sound very logical, but it is amazing to see how many (unsuccessful) products and solutions are launched every year for which there is no or very limited user need. If you are adding functionality with no underlying user needs, you may not only be wasting resources on developing this functionality, but you may be decreasing the overall user experience of your product, simply because more functions generally mean decreased usability.