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Chapter 24
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-8468-3.ch024
A Guide to Online Applications
for User Involvement in
Living Lab Innovation
ABSTRACT
The use of Living Labs is gaining importance as an approach to involve users in innovation and develop-
ment, serving to make users active participants in the development of the networked society. However,
Living Labs are currently not taking full advantage of online applications to support user involvement,
even though such applications are gaining impact in other felds of innovation. The purpose of this
chapter is to: (i) present a framework to classify and relate online applications for user involvement
to the Living Lab context and (ii) present a set of guidelines for the usage of such applications within
Living Labs. The framework and the guidelines are the results of a collaborative process involving seven
Living Lab researchers from four Nordic Living Labs and are meant to guide Living Lab administrators
on whether or how to use online applications for user involvement. The framework and the guidelines
might also be useful for the designers of online applications.
INTRODUCTION
The use of Living Labs is a relatively new ap-
proach to the involvement of users in innovation
and development processes (Schumacher &
Niitamo, 2008). In the field of ICT development,
Living Labs have been defined as environments
for innovation and development in which users are
exposed to new ICT solutions in (semi)-realistic
contexts as part of medium- or long-term studies
(Følstad, 2008a). Consequently, Living Labs are
of high relevance to innovation and development
in the networked society. The Living Lab ap-
proach has received much interest over the last
few years. This is particularly seen in the growth
of the European Network of Living Labs (http://
www.openlivinglabs.eu/), which now contains
more than two hundred Living Labs across Europe.
Asbjørn Følstad
SINTEF ICT, Norway
Amela Karahasanović
SINTEF ICT, Norway & University of Oslo, Norway