In an effort to enhance the traditional calculus-based introductory physics course at Princeton University, an Investigative Science Learning Environment (ISLE) inspired lab transformation is underway, currently in its 3rd year. In the first two years the new curriculum was implemented in a subset of the lab sections, while the remaining sections performed traditional lab activities. To assess the effectiveness of the new design labs, we conducted interviews with the students, and administered a pre/post attitudes survey. The primary questions guiding the evaluations are i) what are the students' lived experiences in the new lab, ii) how did students relate physics to their everyday lives, iii) what are the student-reported short and long term learning gains of the skills developed in design labs, and iv) what are the differences in attitudes between students in the new and traditional labs. Here we describe the pedagogical approach used in the transformed sections and show results from the interviews and survey.