User-driven and open innovation as app design tools for high school students

Supporting high school students in choosing the degree programme that better suits their aspirations and preferences could play a key role in Universities and Colleges strategies, since it could be a crucial element in limiting the students' drop-out phenomenon. With the aim of welcoming freshmen belonging to the digital native generation, we have defined a two-level design framework, by exploiting user-driven innovation and open innovation approaches in a co-design experience. This paper describes such an experience we have conducted by exploring HCI and ICT to design a mobile application that can drive students in choosing the programme that suits their skills and interests, deploying it in the rich scenario of the University of Bologna (Alma Mater Studiorum). The experiment involved 200 high school students and 59 university students in a co-design and open innovation action, resulting in a mobile app.