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Our Research Laboratory, InProcess Lab™,
discovers.

InProcess’ certified Research Laboratory for human sciences and engineering leads fundamental and applied research programs in 5 fields: the mobility, the health, the retail, the house and the Internet of things (IOT).

Over the last 10 years, InProcess has been investing in its own research programs on usages and rituals in both consumer and B2B environments. In addition to our R&D works, we welcome Ph.D. students in ethnology who help discover, create and nurture crucial knowledge on usages and how they evolve.

Since 2011, InProcess Lab™ is officially certified as a Research Laboratory by the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research. This accreditation allows companies in France to benefit from significant tax relief on research carried out with InProcess.

To support the research of our teams of anthropologists, ethnologists, semioticians, sociologists and ergonomists, InProcess Lab™ created the LightRoom observation room and developed proprietary tools dedicated to ethnographic research.

The LightRoom: the new generation of observation rooms to accelerate innovation.

In the LightRoom we observe, we augment experiences and we test innovation.
The LightRoom is a unique in vitro immersion and observation laboratory, coupled with a prototyping workshop. Created specifically by InProcess Lab™, the LightRoom offers the unique capability to immerge users in real-life sceneries thanks to non-intrusive technology, and to more easily observe them using prototypes of products and services which can evolve ‘live’ according to their reactions.
We also lead workshop sessions with our clients’ teams in the LightRoom.

How does the LightRoom work?
Immersion sceneries are tailor-made for each project to bring to life the key users contexts: breakfast in a family, hospital operating rooms or subway corridors during rush hours. They are displayed all around the room and can evolve according to the time of day, seasons, conversations… all in a short time!
The beauty of the LightRoom is that it includes a demonstrator workshop where designers and engineers build real-time mock-ups and prototypes while users are observed. They submit them on the fly to users in the observation room. As they iterate toward a solution, designers assess and reassess their designs.
The LightRoom also welcomes our clients in a room with a two-way mirror to attend the observation sessions.

The LightRoom is a unique innovation accelerator that helps to:

1

Understand insights

Our human sciences researchers gather users and observe their actions, reactions and feelings in various dynamic situations.
2

Augment an experience

Thanks to live projection into key moments and locations users co-create new experiences, products or services in Concept Lab mode moderated by our teams of human sciences experts and designers.
3

Test demonstrators

Our innovation clusters shared outlooks from different companies on a shared client
reveal actionable innovation leads

InProcess Lab™ built innovation clusters on mobility, health, retail and the home: Impedimenta®, WhatHealth?, OnCourse and InHome. These ethno design clusters gather companies who share their knowledge and views on their shared client in order to build innovation opportunities. These incubators rely on InProcess’ ethnographic and design approach and enables us to:

  • observe users up close as they go about their daily lives and build
    detailed understanding of usages, perceptions and needs.
  • identify economic, cultural, ecological and socio-economic factors that shape behaviors.
  • anticipate changes in usage that help transform an offer and
    maintain growth and competitive edge tomorrow.
  • maximize the chances that end customers will welcome innovation into their daily lives.
  • reduce the financial, industrial and management risks of innovation.

My interactive forum™ the online tool to sustain ethnographic research in multiple locations

InProcess Lab™’s online ethnographic tool is an interactive diary that allows immersion in the daily lives of consumers over a longer period of time than allowed for by traditional observation methods. It supports research in multiple countries to detect insights in various cultural, economic and sociological backgrounds.

WHAT HEALTH? The innovation cluster that unveils the relationships to health and well-being tomorrow

What if tomorrow, smartphones replaced doctors? And if data led to customized treatment? If low cost offers cured for less? What If health was consumed just like any common good?

Patients have changed, prevention models and day-to-day care too. The entire ecosystem of health and well-being is being renewed. New players from technology or food, for example, engage in it. These profound changes create strong opportunities for strategic innovation!

Whathealth? is the innovation cluster that reveals the key stakes in the healthcare industry and the concrete solutions to develop.

WhatHealth? is the meeting of key players from non-competitor sectors who pool their visions of their “shared patient/customer”.
It brings together all those who want to take the lead on health evolutions: nutrition, pharmaceutical laboratories, biotech, medical equipment and devices (imaging, in-body, in-vitro), pharmacists and retail, insurance, household appliances, hygiene & beauty, telecoms & data management, sport & leisure…

Entering the WhatHealth? cluster is of course acquiring knowledge through an anthropological, "user-centric" approach - and not through a brand approach. But it is also getting the chance to participate in an open innovation program that builds strong solutions for hybrid innovation and business partnerships.

Our partners

Axa Oxylane Bayer Johnson Air Liquide Danone PSA

WhatHealth? is designed with our academic partner Dominique Desjeux, anthropologist, professor of social and cultural anthropology at the Paris Descartes University and a specialist of the consumption.

  • Together, its participants and our team:
  • 1

    Map

    The specific research fields they want to study

  • 2

    Learn

    Our anthropologists observe and analyze the evolution of the daily experiences and attitudes towards healthcare

  • 3

    Identify

    The major insights from the emerging needs and aspirations

  • 4

    Create

    Scenarios of ideal health experiences

  • 5

    Build

    Concrete innovation solutions on the short, medium and long term for a strong economic value.

ONCOURSE The cluster that invents the retail of tomorrow

It is said that the shopper...

  • Prescribes, sells, trades, finances, influences

  • Seeks to avoid the constraints according to his desires, his needs, his purchasing power and will

  • Decides at any time to redirect his purchase paths via multiple channels

  • Handle his purchases through his networks of individuals, without going through a distributor

To what extent will consumer practices and aspirations reshape the rules of the retail relationship tomorrow?

What place and role should you occupy on their purchase path?

How do retail players articulate themselves to provide fluid consumption experiences, online and offline, both relevant to the "shoppers" and profitable for businesses? With which new players should you collaborate to offer them a quality experience?

Oncourse is the meeting of iconic companies that exchange their perspectives on their "shared client."

On the model of the recent innovation cluster InHome about the house, OnCourse brings together companies who want to understand and make the most of the forthcoming retail changes to innovate efficiently.

Together, they co-create joint representations and scenarios of innovative experiences that reveal potential new models, offers and partnerships. This ‘ethno design’approach of the open innovation is based on the understanding and anticipation of changes in the purchasing practices.

It maximizes the chances that the consumers naturally settle the innovations in their daily lives, and reduces financial and industrial risks of these new business models.

OnCourse is designed with our academic partner Dominique Desjeux, anthropologist, professor of social and cultural anthropology at the Paris Descartes University and a specialist of the consumption.

INHOME The innovation cluster
that reveals what will shape tomorrow’s home.

The ways in which we inhabit our homes are constantly changing. Today our homes are multifunctional and accommodate an ever increasing variety of life styles. These shifts bring new needs to be explored and numerous opportunities for strategic innovation.

InHome is a dedicated space for creation and discussions. It gathers key players from a variety of sectors within the home area, including: property, interior furnishings, nutrition, entertainment, logistics, self-care, maintenance, financial resources, public policy, energy, communication, who come together to share their viewpoints on their common consumer.

InHome benefits from a solid scientific
methodology for innovation in 5 steps.

Participating companies: InHome is conducted by InProcess Lab™ in partnerships with Dominique Desjeux,
our academic partner from Paris V Sorbonne (Paris Descartes University).

Impedimenta® research program leverages innovation opportunities in the mobility area.

When “our” client posts a photo on Facebook from his mobile phone, orders a book on Amazon, buys a macchiato coffee at Starbucks and jumps on a bicycle rented from the city to meet his friends at night, he is successively the client of multiple companies and brands involved in mobility.

InProcess Lab™ and the Chronos Group set up Impedimenta®, the innovation incubator on mobility issues, in 2006. Impedimenta® aims at producing innovation leads for key players of mobility at large thanks to a unique method based on the sharing of their viewpoints and the co-creation of common material. The Impedimenta® approach always leads to the scripting of actionable concepts for products and services.

Each Impedimenta® session starts with an ethnological and anthropological observation, enriched by sociological analyses, to improve the understanding of mobility. Subscribers then gather for creativity workshops to design common prospective scenarios. Each company can leverage these scenarios to create new and fruitful products and services.

Impedimenta® has set up 3 research sessions so far :

Accor, France Telecom, JCDecaux, Pages Jaunes, PSA Peugeot-Citroën, Airbus or Vinci Park were among the first participants of the Impedimenta® research programs.

1

The daily mobility

The first one scrutinized the challenges of the daily mobility in the city.
2

The city break
phenomenon

The second Impedimenta® session focused on the “City Break” phenomenon. It studied those short trips out of the city which give priority to new locations and new travel formats.
3

The third location

The last program investigated “third locations”. An expression of a nomad society, they refer to those restaurants, groceries, airport lobbies or cars which are neither home nor an office, but which welcome more and more people spontaneously coming there to share in professional activities.

Internet of things

InProcess Lab™’s researches on the Internet of things

paved the way for non-intrusive communication objects. Christophe Rebours co-founded Violet, a pioneer of the Internet of Things start-up, to provide connected technologies with a touch of human sensitivity. He intended to transform the traditional new technologies of communication by adding emotion and warmth. He wanted to add a true personality to the “things” of the Internet of things.

In 2003, InProcess Lab™ and Violet’s first researches gave birth to the DAL lamp, the Digital Ambient Light. Sensitive to noise and touch, the DAL lamp is an exploratory communication channel based on variations of light intensity and colors. The DAL lamp prefigured the Nabaztag rabbit – it conveyed information through calm and gentle technology and the human senses.

Christophe Rebours and the Violet team reached a new development with the creation of the Nabaztag rabbit. Initially foreseen as mere cuddly flower or rabbit toy, the Nabaztag benefited from InProcess Lab™’s insights and recommendations on the usage of the object. Families would only adopt the rabbit if its design was sleek, premium and non-childish.

The Nabaztag rabbit was born and its sleek design, its simple ‘signs’, its swivel ears, its soft lighting effects seduced thousands of families. It is a smart and cute communication channel to keep in touch daily with the community of the loved ones. It is permanently connected to the Internet.

Violet is also credited for the creation of the Nano:ztag (a tiny RFID enabled rabbit which launches the applications you want), the Ztamp:s (custom RFID tags) and the Mirr:or, an RFID reader that connects to computers via USB and performs actions based on them.