Integrating Design for All in Living Labs (IDeALL)

Country
EU-wide
Funder
EC Directorate General Enterprise & Industry
Time
2 years
Delivered by
Cité du Design

Background

Integrating Design for All in Living Labs (IDeALL) is one of six projects supported by the European Commission Directorate General Enterprise and Industry's European Design Innovation Initiative.

The IDeALL project aimed to bring together living labs, research-led innovation centres across Europe, with the Design for All community, a network of designers creating inclusive products, services and spaces.

By supporting this collaboration between academia, design and business the project sought to boost European innovation and competitiveness.

How design helped

One of the barriers to collaboration was the lack of a common language to discuss the design and innovation process. This was made more problematic by the multitude of different user-centred design methodologies currently in existence.

The design and living lab communities have not always been in close contact. The first challenge in collaboration was to find a jargon-free common language.

Steering committee, Cité du design

To aid collaboration a comparative analysis was made of four leading design methodologies (Service Prototyping, 3H, LUPI and HUMBLES), and guidance provided as to when to use each. These methods were tested as part of a programme of 23 real-world experiments across 3 business sectors (ICT, healthcare and urban environment). The results of these experiments are published on the IDeALL website.

Outcome

  • 23 experiments successfully conducted across 3 business sectors
  • 50 case studies published
  • 11 partners involved from across 5 European countries

To host the results of their work the IDeALL team created usercentredbusiness.com – this platform now offers a directory of design methods for businesses and the public sector. It also host more than 50 case studies demonstrating the impact of design for all, co-design and user-centered design methodologies.

Mikaël Mangyoku of Cité du Design describes the IDeALL project

Mikaël Mangyoku of Cité du Design describes the IDeALL project

The user-centred business site aims to provide a platform where examples and methods of user-centred innovation are easily available for use by local authorities, businesses, education centres and the general public.

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