ot well known, showed how users could co-create public spaces based on real needs. The original idea was to come up with designs for street furniture, but this evolved into a more fundamental question: what do people want in public spaces? The Slovak Design Centre involved the following in the project: the City of Bratislava, designers, architects, an art academy, a university of technology, cycling and accessibility associations, a bicycle manufacturer, and a street-furniture manufacturer. Using a range of user-centred methods to gather and prototype ideas in the actual setting (Figure 6), the experiment was widely publicized in the Slovak press. By helping the city council work towards its sustainable transport objectives, the experiment to redesign a street gained their support, while simultaneously introducing a new generation of students to the idea of user-driven, design-led innovation.
Figure 6. Street for All experiment organized by the Slovak Design Centre (Photo credit: Jan Mytny)
Although technological innovation is crucial to remaining competitive in international markets, the results will only be adopted if they are attractive to end users. The IDeALL project has helped to demonstrate the potential of combining methodologies from the design for all and living labs domains in order to achieve innovations accepted by users. It has shown that, through this collaboration, some changes have been recognized.
Design for all has to move from user-centred methodologies to user-driven methodologies, as living labs propose. Considering the user as co-designers is a perspective that has been a key element of living labs since the beginning of that movement. In addition, users should be understood from a dual perspective: they are consumers but also citizens. On the other hand, living labs should recognize the need to include more professional design methodologies into their communities.
The IDeALL project has demonstrated that there is a wide range of user-centred design methodologies that can be adapted to different contexts and that can help provide solutions for societal issues, such as caring for an ageing population, obesity, and unemployment. Different methodologies will be of interest to different organizations: for example, businesses planning to deliver tailored services may wish to use service-design methodologies such as those used by the University of Lapland and Laurea University of Applied Sciences, whereas local governments may wish to consider methodologies such as LUPI to help co-design public spaces and at the same time support local businesses. Further experiments using these methodologies would help to determine different applications.
One of the most interesting results of the project has been the creation of a Master’s course called "Smart Cities: Designing with Citizens". Launched by the Design for All Foundation and BAU School of Design in Barcelona, this course aims to ensure that the smart cities of the future will be co-created with their citizens.
Finally, the project has also helped build a taxonomy of methodologies: a majority of the collated methods implicate the user at a high level at the ideation/conception phases, but gaps remain in the latter phases, such as prototyping.
The IDeALL consortium invites anyone interested in user-driven, design-led innovation to explore the user-centred business portal and provide feedback on how this can be improved to better meet their requirements: www.usercentredbusiness.com
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