Iris Jennes

The living lab methodology is widely used in innovation projects to drive user-centered development. While its benefits, such as co-creation and real-world validation, are well known, its implementation presents challenges that remain underexplored. This study examines these challenges by using the Horizon 2020 Möbius project as a case study. While the Möbius project itself aimed to modernize European book publishing through an immersive reading application and a data visualization tool, this study reflects on the implementation process of the living lab approach within that context, using an action research approach. After project completion, a structured brainstorming session reviewed identified challenges and mitigation strategies. Findings highlight three key challenges. First, misalignment between assumed and actual stakeholder needs hindered industry engagement. Second, recruitment was complicated by the ambiguous use of “prosumer”, causing confusion among participants. Third, communication gaps and personnel changes disrupted the integration of user feedback into development cycles. These challenges underscore the need for early and continuous stakeholder alignment, adaptive communication, and structured knowledge management. Based on these findings, the study proposes strategies to improve engagement and integrate user insights more effectively, ultimately enhancing the impact of living lab-based innovation projects.

The development of immersive media applications depends on structured processes early on to gather and prioritise user requirements. The processes for complex research projects with multiple partners often take place through internal co-creation sessions with consortium members rather than direct contact with end users. The effectiveness of these initial processes remains crucial as they drive the refinement of the application that will later be tested by end-users, developers and professional stakeholders. This paper examines the methodological challenges that arose during the collection of qualitative requirements and quantitative prioritisation within the PRESENCE project, a European project focusing on developing extended reality (XR) technologies to improve immersive communication. Combining action research with reflective analysis, this paper reveals several key challenges, including (1) difficulties in designing realistic yet visionary personas and aligning stakeholder interpretations, (2) translation issues from open-ended feedback to concrete and actionable requirements, and (3) cognitive overload and reduced engagement during the quantitative prioritisation of a large set of requirements. The research findings fit into general evaluation approaches for immersive media projects and provide recommendations to improve early-stage processes, which will benefit future interaction and storytelling design.

In a fast-evolving news media landscape, journalists are exploring the potential of Extended Reality (XR) technologies to connect with their news consumers and to attract new audiences. Our research focuses how Social XR can contribute to establish social interactions between journalist and news consumers in a shared virtual environment (VE). Derived from four qualitative co-creation workshops with both user groups, we present a set of user requirements to keep into account for the creation of a user-centred Social XR environment where such engaging interactions occur.

This paper explores how the Socratic method, implemented in an AI-chatbot, can be used to stimulate citizens’ critical thinking, and consequently fight disinformation. In the Horizon Europe project TITAN, we are scrutinizing this opportunity. A prototype of the Socratic AI-chatbot was tested in four Co-Creation Labs with citizens. The findings presented in this paper indicate that there is potential and provide guidance to improve the effectiveness of the Socratic AI-chatbot in stimulating critical thinking and recognizing disinformation.

Hybrid radio has the potential to transform people’s in-car radio experience, as it offers a multitude of new features. This article discusses an in the field trial of an in-car hybrid radio service, consisting of different features like interactive menus, voice control and time shifting. The article addresses the methodological test setup and results of the field trial with 14 test-users in the UK and provides a reflection on the user evaluation of the developed hybrid radio tool. Results indicate that participants particularly value now playing and voice control as necessary hybrid in-car radio functionalities. Other functionalities such as time shifting were considered nice to have. The participants did have a concern for safety when navigating the in-car application. The willingness to pay for in-car radio systems was also low.

As reported by the Federation of European Publishers [2] “Book publishing is the largest cultural industry in Europe, and European publishing (uniquely among European cultural industries) is a world leader”. The sector can count on €36–40 billion in market value, €22–24 billion turnover per year, and from 600.000 to 700.000 jobs. However, digital transformation is imposing massive changes. To keep the position, the European publishing industry must dominate the transformation. In line with this, the aim of the research conducted in the Möbius project, funded by the European Commission, is twofold. On the one hand, to gather knowledge on existing practices considering challenges and opportunities for the sector. On the other hand, to deliver, at the end of the funding, (i) technical solutions that could foster the state of the art of the sector and (ii) theoretical contribution, in terms of new business model, to reshape current models for revenue. In line with this, it is crucial to understand the power of the so-called prosumers and empower them into the value chain delivering user-centric and user-driven perspectives in the design and delivery of enriched media experiences for books. Given the importance and centrality of the publishing industry for other creative and cultural sectors as well (e.g., audiovisual, music, architecture, etc.), the expectation is that research findings will inform future European policy strategies for the cultural and creative industry in order to provide support and funding to the publishing sector.