sages et Pratiques Innovants (LUPI; Innovative Use and Practice Laboratory) methodology, whereas a company wishing to shift to a more user-centred business model overall might consider Francesc Aragall’s HUMBLES method for user-centred business (Aragall & Montaña, 2012). In the subsections below, we describe some examples of these methodologies, which are summarized in Table 1.
Table 1. Summary of four example methodologies for user-centred design
1. Service Prototyping
1. Service prototyping (University of Lapland)
The Service Innovation Corner (SINCO) is a service prototyping lab at the University of Lapland in Rovaniemi, Finland. The SINCO lab helps visualise and concretize abstract services and experiences by using service design tools and prototyping methods. Service prototypes consist of pictures or videos that are projected to screens and also sounds, lights, and props (Figure 1). Service prototyping can be used in all stages of the design process but is especially valuable in the ideation or conceptualisation phase. The basic idea of prototyping is to concretize unclear ideas and to provide information for planning and decision making.
Figure 1. Users participating in a service prototyping exercise at the SINCO
The methodology has proven effective in the following case study:
2. 3H: Head, Heart, Hands-on (Citilab)
The 3H (Head, Heart, Hands-on) methodology uses the human body metaphor to describe a step-by-step user-driven innovation process. It is an open living lab methodology that has been specifically developed for the European CIP iCity project.
The methodology goes through three major phases of activity:
- Head: identifying and mapping the actors of the community innovation system to provide protocols and tools to collect and understand the needs and barriers to participate.
- Heart: consolidating all the relationships necessary to establish trust and commitment between all the stakeholders.
- Hands-on: engaging the participants in the co-creation and development activity in itself. The final part of this activity includes an evaluation activity based on a client-driven set of indicators.
The 3H methodology favours multi-disciplinary teams; it is not restricted to a particular type of user. However, 3H has been developed by Citilab and has been tested in their citizen engagement activity. This in-house methodology has been adapted to the iCity project in order to engage its stakeholders, and to foster the co-creation of services in the public interest.
The methodology has proven effective in the following case study:
3. LUPI (Cité du design)
The LUPI (Innovative Use and Practices Laboratory) is a user-centred co-creation tool conceived in the Cité du design. Inspired by research methods from the Cité du design research department, the LUPI’s added value is its flexibility (it has been applied in the private as well as local government sector) as well as its short duration (three to six months), which is in line with the temporality of small and medium-sized enterprises. A LUPI project always consists of three phases:
- Framing the issue (1 day): Partners share their issues and clarify them collectively. Throughout the day, with the help of designers and the project coordinator, these ideas are refined and a particular investigation track is chosen. When the issue is clarified, a typology of users is also defined in order to prepare the next phase of the LUPI project.
- On-site observations (3 ½ days): The second phase is more immersive. LUPI partners are trained by the designers to capture and synthetize "hidden insights" during user interviews.
- Sharing (1 day): LUPI partners present the collected insights from the on-site observations and interviews. After the presentations, an ideation phase enables the new ideas to be mapped with the help of the designers. Particular attention is givento concepts with strong strategic elements that may lead to sustainable business models.
The most significant concepts generated from the last LUPI step are rendered in the form of a scenario title associated with a prese