MIICT

The MIICT project is building on the co-creation methodology to involve the future end-users of the outcomes in the concept and design phase. The mind mapping and paper prototyping exercises, which were conducted with migrants, non-profit organisations and service providers from Italy, Spain and Cyprus, highlighted the main challenges for integration and drafted concepts and approaches for the online platform.

For framing and shaping the MIICT outcomes according to the perspective of migrants, public sector services, NGO partners and subject-matter experts, the partners applied an intense co-creation research process. Two sets of workshops at all three pilot locations in Italy, Cyprus and Spain were conducted for mapping the challenges and proposing solutions to be addressed in MIICT.

In the first set of workshops, which took place in April 2019, cognitive and context mapping were used to create mind-maps as well as storyboards that elaborate abstract processes. In the second set of workshops, which took place in October 2019, mind maps were used to elaborate on the type and form of IT- enabled services in order to overcome the identified challenges along nine core pillars, which represent the major challenges for the target groups: Education, Housing, Health, Inclusion, Social Security, Employment, Language, Transportation and Status. 

Aims and implementation

The prototyping workshops aimed at co-designing public service transformations using ICTs. Prototyping was used to explore, evaluate, and communicate how participants might behave in or experience a future service situation. Prototyping was an essential activity to reduce risk and uncertainty as early and as cheaply as possible, to improve the quality of IMMERSE services, and to implement the MIICT project successfully. In each workshop members from MIICT design (researchers) and development (technical experts) teams participated alongside migrants, service providers and NGOs participants. 

During the paper Prototyping workshops, the participants assessed the envisioned services that were drafted against the background of the initial user requirements, which were collected in a series of interviews. A section of services with one or two services per module were presented to the participants. The participants worked with printed mock-ups or paper prototypes, which visualized very first drafts of the services. Furthermore, input was requested and provided by participants to further develop and improve the initial requirements against the background of the general concept, the usability, the wording and the design. To further engage participants and allow them to contribute to the actual development of ICT services, tablets were used for testing the initial drafts of the user interfaces of selected services and for stimulating the creativity.

This workshop round proved again the power of co-creation. Creating and designing ICT tools and services together with different types of users enables researchers and developers to add value and reliability to the services. This time-consuming but fruitful approach has been supporting the engagement with the end-users and will furthermore support the sustainability of the core outcome of MIICT: the digital IMMERSE platform.

Links

http://www.miict.eu 

Keywords

Co-creation, participatory design, migration, ICT, platform