Three User-Driven Innovation Methods for Co-creating Cloud Services

The role of users in design is changing from one of passive research subjects to one of active co-designers. Users are the best experts of their everyday life experiences, making them great potential sources of innovation. User-driven innovation requires methods by which user ideas can be captured and worked on further with designers. In this paper, we describe our experiences of three different methods to co-create cloud services. Our aim was to innovate with users how open access to telecommunication data such as user location, user profile and usage logs could be utilised in cloud services. The user-driven innovation methods included focus group, crowdsourcing in an open web lab and face-to-face interaction in an open innovation showroom. We compare these three methods and identify the best usage possibilities for each. We propose guidance on selecting user-driven innovation methods based on the available resources and targeted results.