D3.2 Interim Evaluation report of pilots 1
Creators: name: Maria Sangiuliano, Marzia Cescon
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2018
Subjects: Social-digital innovation &amp; platform evaluation, acceptance, usability

description: The Families Share project has undergone its first pilot experiment whereas a socially innovative model of time sharing for childcare based on volunteering, self-management and mutual help from parents (coplaying) supported by an on line platform/app to facilitate organization of activities, has been proposed in 8 cities (Venice, Bologna, Trento, Kortrijk, Thessaloniki, Hamburg, Budapest, Győr), and tested in 6 of them (Venice, Bologna, Trento, Kortrijk, Thessaloniki, Győr). The Families Share app has been released in several versions, it has been subject to two rounds of initial evaluations followed by improvement’s cycles, before the actual piloting: a heuristic evaluation was held with experts from partners, and a usability test (early March 2019) run with 46 participating parents and, following those, the platform was made ready for ‘in situation’ use in May 2019 (see details of results and their impact on the design process in Chapter 1). Positive results have been achieved for a first test in very different contexts: from February to July 2019, each City Lab has held many meetings and gatherings where representatives from 54 stakeholders have taken part, mostly schools, city representatives and NGOs. During the same periods, 384 parents have attended meetings and preparatory events, 285 of those have also experimented co-playing activities between June and July, with different adapted versions of shared childcare as a social innovation component of the project, and 95 users have registered on the Platform. Two major typologies of co-playing activities have emerged: co-playing weeks and afterschool/afternoon activities; variations are definitely influenced by a series of highly contextual macro and micro factors in each one of the involved cities and neighborhoods. On one side, for summer co-playing weeks, a more straightforward choice prioritizing the goal of offering a solution to childcare during holiday periods in the requires more volunteering efforts from parents. On the other hand, for the afterschool activities a more gradual approach was putting the need for building trust and communities of parents up front. While in Kortrijk, Venice, and Trento to a lesser extent with its specificities as a work place based pilot, parents have been more intensively and directly conducting childcare activities in great part contributing to organizing them, the other City Labs have used a more gradual approach with respect to experimenting the proposed socially innovative behaviours. The gap between the number of co-playing parents and the number of registered users on the platform is explained by the fact that in the city with the highest number of co-playing parents (Kortrijk) the platform was not used. Indeed, as it is reported and argued along Chapter 2 the ‘platform has been used ‘in situation’ as a tool for organizing the co-playing activities in Venice and Trento only, while in Győr, Thessaloniki and Bologna it has been tested by parents during the activities or right after their conclusion. The project has been implemented by almost all the City Labs in such a way that the proposed social innovation has been tested while at the same time co-designing a digital tool with the same groups of participants. Only for the Belgian City Lab this was not the case, and the 2 dimensions of innovation were not aligned: in that case, a fully accepted social innovation already ongoing since almost 5 years, facilitated by a series of supporting tools, has created an habit from parents. This has been an obstacle to the acceptance of the digital innovation component, especially as the release of ready to use version of the platform came at a point in time when they had already organized their summer co-playing weeks (May 2019). To this respect, the Families Share experience so far confirms that promoting acceptance of a digital tool and a socially innovative behaviors at the same time, can reinforce each other, while, vice-versa, misalignment can generate resistance from participants/users. Nevertheless, the feedback from the 75 parents participating to the evaluation of both the shared childcare activities and platform were encouraging: as reported in Chapter 3, the social innovation component is extremely appreciated and valued by all participants across all the 6 cities. The main strong point and added value perceived by parents and City Lab managers is definitely the trust-based community building opportunity that the Families Share social innovation model brings about, and the fact that it is a high quality and affordable childcare solution. Many parents across different City Labs have expressed their intention to repeat the experience already during the upcoming new school year in autumn/winter, and their positive experience will be thoroughly communicated, with WP5 support, at the local levels to expand the City Lab communities. Evaluation of the app/platform was also overall positive: it was considered quite easy to use and useful by the majority of parents (60%). Considering technology acceptance (a broader construct with respect to usability), results of the survey show that almost 50% of the respondents in the City Labs considered the platform useful and easy to use, and they have a positive attitude toward the application and a positive intention to use the app in the future. The results suggest that while the app is mostly perceived as usable and useful, users would need a stronger motivation for sustaining adoption and continuous usage of the platform. The evaluation has allowed to identify the most relevant encountered challenges (Chapter 4) in the Families Share piloting process, and to identify emerging models and a series of additional requested/desired features as well as reflections on future scenarios of use (Chapter 5). Findings will be used by partners to carefully monitor the dynamics of appropriation of the proposed digital and social innovations, in view of finalizing the co-design process and further refining the platform and its upcoming new and last release, as well as to organize the new pilot activities in 2020.