A Living Lab model for user driven innovation in urban communities

Many innovative information communication technology (ICT) products and services that fail are not for lack of advanced technology but because of a failure to understand real users´ needs. The users´ experiences and feedbacks on new applications have become important components in the development of new ICT products and services. Therefore, an emperical approach to identify users´ needs and underpin the product requirements can support the development of new ICT services significantly. A user-centric multidisciplinary research approach based on real life experiments- “Taiwan Living Lab” has been set up in Minsheng Community in Taipei City, Taiwan. In the Living Lab concept, the lab environment is brought to the users and the experiments are validated in real life contexts. The purpose of Taiwan Living Lab is to work with companies, public sectors, research institutes, and individuals from local communities to test the new ICT applications and promote user driven innovation activities. Context research, user requirements specification, user involvement, and iterative evaluation and modification the business model are the key elements in the new service development. A methodological approach - “Service Experience Engineering (SEE)” has been established to enhance effective open innovation, the three major phases of SEE methodology are: (I) FIND; (II) InnoNet; (III) Design Lab. Phase I “FIND” focuses on context research, observation and collection of users´ behavioral data, and trend research of new ICT service and relevant technologies. Phase II “InnoNet” concentrates on business ecosystem analyses and service modeling. Phase III “Design Lab” enables the industries to test new services or products within real life environments. Two projects- “Grandparents Easy Go”, and “Wise Household Care & Communication”, have been deployed with SEE approach in Minsheng Community to validate the methodology. The processes and outcomes of the projects are introduced and discussed in the paper.