Supporting co-creation with software, the idSpace platform

The idSpace platform provides support for collaborating innovators.Support for innovators affects learning, choice of creativity technique and context awareness.Evaluation using a realistic usage scenario revealed platform weaknesses and strengths. Innovation, in general, requires teamwork among specialist of different disciplines. The idSpace project developed ideas on how teams of collaborating innovators could best be supported. These ideas were embodied in a platform that the project developed. This idSpace platform allows its users to choose between various creativity techniques, pedagogical approaches and context-aware uses of stored information on projects, people and techniques. The platform follows a general process metaphor with specialised modules for specific parts, i.e. it starts with defining the problem to be addressed and through a sequence of steps concludes with a proposed solution. The platform was designed and developed by a multi-disciplinary team. It was evaluated through a realistic usage scenario which focused on the integral platform, from both an end-user and expert user perspective embodying a combination of qualitative and quantitative measurements on usability, general functionality and creativity aspects. This combination, as will be explained, proved to be a powerful way to prioritise and steer the further development of the platform.