Telefónica boosts its Innovation and Talent Hub with Experience Design Lab

Telefónica has inaugurated its new Experience Design Lab at its headquarters in Distrito Telefónica, Madrid, the nerve centre of the company’s Innovation and Talent Hub. The new centre is a cutting-edge, benchmark space where work is being carried out on co-designing the technology of the future with a people-centred approach.

In 2008, Telefónica opened its first user experience research laboratory, which has evolved into the current Experience Design Lab. This is a new space which, as a novelty, incorporates a Gaming room equipped and prepared to test the latest technology in virtual reality, augmented reality and video game-based experiences with users.

The space is specially designed to carry out research with people, regardless of whether or not they are Telefónica customers, with whom, through interviews, observation of experiences, experiments, validation of concepts, usability tests or discussion groups, among other techniques, to try to understand how they use the technology. These experiences will always guarantee the privacy of the data of the users who participate as a principle of research.

Experience Design Lab has facilities that favour the cooperative design process. In addition to the new gaming room, it has a room that recreates a home for users to feel comfortable in the research process, a collaborative room, an open and spacious agora for sharing knowledge and a viewing room, which has now also improved the monitoring system for remote access, so that the research is not intrusive and can be followed without interfering with the process. The lab is also open to Telefónica’s technology partners who want to use its facilities to co-create with the people who will be the future users of the technology of the future.

‘Testers’, a new betatester community

The laboratory seeks to understand the needs of society, and to bring together both Telefónica’s products and services and those of the companies with which it collaborates that want to test the technology with real users. Having the opinion and experience of all profiles is essential for the success of the research.

Testers is a new open community of betatesters for all those who are passionate about technology and who want to be the first to try it out, regardless of their age, education or whether or not they are customers of the company.

Those interested will be able to participate in all phases of the innovation process: research, ideation and testing. Participants will be recognised and rewarded through incentives in the form of unique experiences and discounts, among others.

The Innovation and Talent Hub keeps growing

The new Experience Design Lab is part of Telefónica’s Innovation and Talent Hub at its headquarters in Madrid. A hub designed to lead the new digital era with more than 10,000 m2 dedicated to innovation and talent training, a living technological environment in constant evolution where to test, experiment and create the solutions that will determine the technology of the future.

The incorporation of the new laboratory complements an offer that brings together innovation spaces in the same physical space where to anticipate and be an active part of the technology that is to come.