Involving end-users in your design and evaluation process
Developers of ICT-products and services are increasingly aware of the necessity of involving end-users in the design process, and evaluating designs ‘in the wild’. The latter refers to the evaluation of products and services for which the context of use has important consequences for design. In situ evaluation requires a real-life environment, the involvement of end users, and unobtrusive measurements. The Living Lab approach has become a popular approach that meets these requirements.
How can we help you?
Setting up a Living Lab project is a useful step for many complex design and evaluation challenges. However, this is not a simple task. It requires, for instance, knowledge of how to organise a Living Lab. It also requires knowledge of the methods, techniques, and tools relevant for the evaluation problem at hand. A wide variety of measurement tools and sensors are available to unobtrusively measure a user’s behaviour. Applying these tools requires technical and methodological expertise. The same goes for non-sensor-based methods and techniques.
In order to help you with deciding whether a Living Lab approach is appropriate and to supply you with well-structured methodological information, researchers of Novay involved in the Amsterdam Living Lab use the following process:
1. Determine whether living labs are appropriate.
This is done by applying a short survey that provides the client with advice about whether a living lab approach is appropriate in his situation
2. Analyse the nature of the client’s problem.
For this a survey that addresses the key aspects of the client’s design and/or evaluation problem is used.
3. Select the relevant methodology.
Based on the analysis of the client’s problem, a database with well-structured methodological information is consulted, filtering relevant information for his specific situation
4. Provide advice.
Personal advice on the set up and execution of a living lab-based project is provided to the client.
A website packed with knowledge on Living Labs
The web-based ‘Knowledge Centre’ is available at //amsterdamlivinglab.novay.nl//. It is a community-based website to which all stakeholder are invited to contribute. It contains the aforementioned surveys in the form of a decision tree to assess your problem. It also contains a collection of methods, techniques, tools and sensors. Information about organisational aspects of Living Lab projects will be added to the web site, including:
- information on how to involve users in the design process (co-creation);
- information on how to collaborate in Living Lab projects with different organisations;
- information on components of Living Lab environments;
- useful checklists;
- and much more!
In addition, you will be able to contact Living Lab experts for personal advice. If you are considering to set up a Living Lab project or if you have question about the Living Lab approach, please contact Mettina Veenstra at
