AbstractsBusiness Management & Administration

Involving users in the design process of products and services in order to increase the added value for these users is becoming more common. The company Contextmapp was aware of this trend. It wanted to extend its mobile application ‘Contextmapp’, which was used for gathering insights on users’ needs. A suitable graduation assignment was formulated: ‘To design functionalities for an extension of the Contextmapp, with which the user involvement in the design process is enhanced.’ The two challenges that were discovered early in the process, are: (1) ‘By increasing the user involvement in the design process, users are asked to spend more time and effort on the project.’ and (2) ‘Organizing a project in a digital environment quickly makes the experience impersonal and insecure.’ Acknowledging these as challenges, it was important to find a suitable user involvement approach and integrate a motivation mechanism in the design of the extended version of the Contextmapp. A competitor analysis, a literature study, expert sessions, and a motivation experiment resulted in insights on how to involve users in the design process and motivate them for active participation. This resulted in the formulation of a design goal: ‘To provide users with a tool to participate in the analysis- and ideation phase of the design process, on a consultation- or collaboration level, while giving (personal) feedback and addressing ‘self development’, ‘feeling of belonging’, ‘responsibility’ and ‘fun’ to increase their intrinsic motivation to actively co-create.’ Brainstorm sessions, idea clustering, selecting, and combining ideas led to a concept. This concept contained a Contextmapp co-creation process with a description of roles and activities, a suitable Contextmapp application and dashboard, and a motivation mechanism. This motivation mechanism consisted of a team, expert talks, a selection procedure, and (personal) feedback. All were tested in a short co-creation project with the current Contextmapp. Learnings were processed and a final design for the Contextmapp co-creation process and Contextmapp mobile application were made. The co-creation process of the final design contains three phases: data gathering, data analysis and ideation. The data gathering phase was already present in the current Contextmapp. When detailing the design the emphasis was on the ideation phase. The activities for a participant in the ideation phase are: being selected, watching expert talks, ideating with a team and giving and receiving personal feedback. Features of the final mobile application design are a menu to move through all the three co-creation phases, a you-zone with assignments and tools to capture information, a team-zone to share captured elements and give eachother feedback and expert talks. To verify if this design would meet the design goal a final design test was done. Test participants were guided through a fictive co-creation scenario by using an interactive pdf in which the design was prototyped. The following conclusion could be…