The Living Lab Methodology

A Living Lab is a user-driven open innovation environment in real-life settings built upon public-private partnerships in which the main driver for innovation is the process of co-creation for new services, products and societal infrastructures. Living Labs encompass societal and technological dimensions simultaneously in a business-citizens-government-academia partnership [1, 2].

The Living Lab systemic approach in the context of the SAVE ENERGY project aims to involve all the relevant stakeholders from the very beginning of a new idea, creating the motivation to share and discuss their experiences and expectations. This collaborative environment, where users are expected to co-create the solutions, leads to a natural acceptance by the stakeholders who will feel empowered to test, evaluate and report their own experience with the new solutions in a controlled social environment. The Living Lab methodology ensures that the transformed behaviours and the recommended policies are accepted by informed, motivated and empowered users.

Spiral Approach to Game Development

The Living Lab methodology is aligned with current user-driven spiral approaches to agile game development where successive releases (i.e. alpha, beta, gold, etc.) are the result of interaction between project streams, namely vision, integration and innovation, testing and evaluation, implementation, dissemination and management, from concept to best practices benchmarking and dissemination [3, 4].

[1] ENoLL, (2009). “Open Living Labs.” 2009, from http://www.openlivinglabs.eu/.
[2] A. Oliveira, (2007). “Living Labs Open Innovation Community: Actions and Plans”, 4th International Workshop on the Living Labs in the Innovative Cross-border eRegions, Kranj, Slovenia, 8th November 2007
[3] M. Oliveira, B. Andersen, A. Oliveira, A. Rolstadas, (2006). “Using Serious Games to Improve European Competitiveness”, e-Challenges 2006, Barcelona, Spain, 25th to 27th October 2006
[4] M. Oliveira, B. Andersen, A. Oliveira, A. Rolstadas, (2006). “A Case Study of Applying Spiral Development Approach for Building a Serious Game in Strategic Manufacturing”, e-Challenges 2006, Barcelona, Spain, 25th to 27th October 2006