Living in the lab: an analysis of the work in eight living laboratories set up in care homes for technology innovation

Abstract

Examinations of living labs are scarce even though the approach is increasingly used as an opportunity to bring design activities into real-life use context and consequently facilitate cooperations between designers and users in future technology innovation. Furthermore, examinations of living labs that focus on the people living in the labs do not exist. This paper presents a study of eight living labs set up in care homes for innovation in health technologies and focuses on the work carried out by care workers, service staff, residents and management, i.e. people living and working in the labs. The analysis reveals a comprehensive system of work carried out by people living and working in the labs and identifies that linking the lab-work-system to the ongoing existing work-system is a major challenge. The study demonstrates that the work of people living and working in the labs is critical to the success of living labs and recommends greater focus on work balance, user gains and collaborative innovation in living lab theories and methods.

Keywords:

• Living lab
• participatory design
• work
• health technology
• innovation
• care home

Acknowledgement

Thanks to participants in the LabX-project for collecting and sharing data material – The University College North Denmark, the Health College SOSU Nord, the care homes, and Ann Bygholm and Søren Bolvig Poulsen from Aalborg University. The data analysis was carried out during a research visit to the Living Environments Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin–Madison (UW). Thanks to UW and especially to Patricia Flatley Brennan for bringing perspective to this research on living laboratories in health care. Also thanks to Anne Moen from Oslo University and Peter Hoonakker from University of Wisconsin–Madison for conversations about the balance model.

Funding

The living labs investigated in this paper received funding from the European Regional Development Fund.