gues in his article titled "Food Doesn't Grow in Silicon Valleys".
On the macro-level, funding for research and development in Europe has not necessarily translated into innovation uptake in Europe (Curley & Salemin, 2013). On the micro-level, even in purely market terms, innovation is no guarantee of the success of a product or service, as Mulder (2012) has shown in this publication. Indeed, Gournville (2005) finds that, although "Innovation is crucial to the long-term success of many firms", "highly innovative products… fail at a greater rate than less innovative products", a phenomenon which he attributes to the need for a fundamental behaviour change that the adoption of such products requires.
Accordingly, we ask:
- How can companies lead the innovation charge while mitigating the risks of launching new products?
- How can public services evolve in such a way that they empower citizens without leaving any one group behind?
- How can design be a factor of change while leading innovation to the market?
In this article, we describe the Integrating Design for All in Living Labs (IDeALL) project, which aims to answer these questions. First, we describe how the European Union has begun to consider the discipline of design as a driver of innovation, and then we briefly explain two of the main themes of the project: design for all and living labs. Next, we explain the rationale behind the project and give examples of the methodologies collated and compared according to the different criteria used to classify them. We then provide examples and findings of some of the project's experiments and case studies across four main areas: i) services; ii) health and social care; iii) information and communication technology (ICT); and iv) urban design. Finally, we suggest further possible applications of these methodologies by other businesses and public-sector bodies.
Design as a Driver of Innovation
The European Commission has begun to address these questions at policy level in a number of ways, including a focus on non-technological innovation such as design. In 2011, it established a Design Leadership Board, whose report Design for Growth and Prosperity (Thomson & Koskinen, 2012) includes recommendations aimed at enhancing design's "long-term contribution to smart, sustainable, and inclusive growth through increased competitiveness and the pursuit of a better quality of life". The report presents design as a driver of innovation, defining it as "an activity of people-centred innovation by which desirable and usable products are defined and delivered". By bringing the end user closer to the innovation process, the report argues, the risk of launching new products and services may be reduced.
Design for all, also known as universal design in North America, is a branch of design that takes human diversity into account so that anyone, no matter what their personal characteristics and including future generations, can access goods, services, and environments and hence can participate fully in society (Aragall and Montaña, 2012). Although technology brings new possibilities, it can be a barrier as well as a facilitator (Steinfeld and Maisel, 2012); design for all seeks to ensure that technological innovation is tied to social progress, as suggested by design-for-all professional Rafael Montes in an interview cited in the Design for All Foundation Awards brochure (Design for All Foundation, 2013).
Design for all emphasizes the importance of involving users in the design process, because this means the end result is more likely to meet their needs. This view has traditionally put the discipline at odds with the "lone genius" stereotype of the designer; however, as Design for Growth and Prosperity suggests, this model is becoming increasingly discredited, as "the complexities of innovation call for a truly multidisciplinary approach" that involves users at all stages. Although many designers adopt a design-for-all approach as a matter of principle, successes such as the OXO product range imply that it has a role in bringing successful inno