Needsfinding and design of a Living lab in the built environment

Involvement of (end) users is essential in Living Labs. Testing assumptions by exhibiting these to users leads to new insights and often also to innovation. In this study, we show these phenomena by use of a Living Lab in a health care organization. We examine user involvement by researching their needs and desires related to residential accommodation for volunteers on the site of a health care organization. The multi-method approach included questionnaires and interviewing but also Design Thinking. Hence, a wider range of insights, from tacit to explicit needs, is captured. This study elaborates on the Needsfinding and the Design Phase and shows that structuring a Living Lab into preparatory phases, reduces the cost of the iterative process of changing the prototype.