Living Lab Method

The Living Lab Method (originally developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)) is an empirical, user-centered research concept for open-innovation. The approach integrates concurrent research and innovation processes (co-creation approach). This co-creation approach is integrated in through the co-creation, exploration, experimentation and evaluation of innovative ideas, scenarios, concepts and related technological artefacts in real life use cases.

Living Labs aim at identifying and realizing the potential contribution of integrating users and all relevant actors for the successful and effective generation of innovations in production-consumption systems. Therefore, a main characteristic of this method is the idea of turning users from being traditionally considered as observed subjects for testing modules against requirements, into value creation in contributing to the co-creation and exploration of emerging ideas, breakthrough scenarios, innovative concepts and related artefacts. Moreover, the benefit of early end-user involvement is that a direct gathering of data for testing the prototypes in real life use cases secures a desirable outcome for the users and reduces uncertainty about how the product is accepted for the product owners.

This process takes place in the real environment of the users or in laboratories that are configured for user interactions (e.g., for the development of prototypes). Common methods examples for data collection in these environments are user observations and field tests.

The Living Lab Method consists of the following four phases and main activities, run through in each Iteration:

Co-Creation

The co-creation phase serves the analysis of problems, needs and the market, ideation & co-design. Users and other stakeholders are involved as described above. The most commonly used tools during the co-creation phase adopted are focus groups, interviews, brainstorming sessions and questionnaires. All these tools can be used concurrently to build a clear picture of either a market or a targeted user. For supporting a clear picture of the developed ideas additional canvas methods are often used. For the following phases the most promising idea is selected by ranking or filtering.

Exploration

In the exploration phase, prototyping (e.g. rapid prototyping, fake mock-ups) is used to investigate whether the idea from the co-creation phase works. The benefit of a prototype that simulates products or services is that the Idea becomes more plastic which makes it easier to explain it to the engaged stakeholders to gather feedback on the idea. As a result of the exploration, an MVP of the application is determined and substantiated.

Experimentation

In the experiment phase the MVP is tested. First the Living Lab setup and the users are described. In addition, hypotheses are formulated and the data necessary for the validation of these hypotheses are defined. For the test phase it is necessary to implement a proper level of technological artifacts to experience live scenarios with a larger number of users while collecting data which will be analyzed in their context during the evaluation activity.

Evaluation

The aim of the evaluation phase is to improve the service/product with the results of the experiment phase. The test results will be evaluated and the hypotheses will be validated. The findings derived from the data analysis should then improve the service/product. Professional & Expert Evaluations as well as focus groups are used for this purpose. The next iteration will now begin with the identified issues and lessons learned.

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Documentation by Katerina O., Katharina S., Sebastian H., Tamara S.