User-driven innovation? Challenges of user involvement in future technology analysis

Abstract

The shift from the traditional push towards more user-driven innovation strategies in the information and communications technologies domain has urged companies to place the user at the core of their innovation process in a more systematic way. In this paper we reflect on the implications of this new innovation context for traditional product development processes. Given these implications, two challenges are discussed that are crucial to true user-driven innovation, i.e. the challenge of continuously involving the user and the need for tools to facilitate the integration of knowledge into the increasingly interdisciplinary development process. Drawing on our own experiences in the interdisciplinary Research On Mobile Applications and Services (ROMAS) project, which focused on future mobile applications in a living lab setting, we illustrate how the two challenges can be tackled.