The collaboration took place during a ½ a year while completing the final thesis of our education of Architecture & Design, Aalborg University. With this final thesis we (the project group) wanted to strengthen our competencies concerning user centred design processes and create knowledge of how to display these competencies.

The project group’s goal with the chosen theme was to investigate how user research can be handed over from researchers to concept developers to create value in the concept development phase.

In order to understand this process in practice the project group contacted Copenhagen Living Lab, CLL, for project collaboration.

CLL offers business user insight and counselling in organising innovation processes, by systematic collecting and analyse knowledge of user driven needs. CLL explores the everyday life in ex. a kindergarten or a school, which forms the basis of innovation.

The project, VIDEO, is a synthesis process to use when CLL are working in cooperation with designers. It is a process where the development is incorporated in the user research process with respect for the ethnological analytical quality.

Use of video in the user research insures that the designer can get access to the users, which is important in order of understanding the user and create empathy for the user. CLL uses their competencies to outline directions for the devel¬opment process, but by using video allows the designer to discover and understand the users them self.

The video process contains of 4 Steps:

• Framing workshop: to frame directions for the user research.
• User research: Video record field studies.
• Analysis: creating video portraits and innovation tracks with supporting video sequences.
• Video workshop: based on video portraits and innovation tracks with supporting video sequences, aiming to force the interdisciplinary cooperation between the ethnologists and designer.

Why is your collaboration special and not a typical client-customer relationship?

Websites

• Studio / Agency: www.copenhagenlivinglab.com
• Client: louisemolholt.blogspot.com