Abstract
The Senior Living Lab (SLL) is a transdisciplinary research platform created by four Universities that aims at promoting ageing well at home through the co-creation of innovative products, services and practices with older adults. While most living labs for ageing well are focused on Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), this social laboratory adopts a transdisciplinary approach, bringing together designers, economists, engineers and healthcare professionals to develop multiple forms of social innovation using participatory methods. The SLL is based on an ecological approach, connecting professionals and users in a cooperative network and involving all of the stakeholders concerned with ageing well, such as existing associations, business entities and policy-makers. Three main themes for the co-design of products and services were identified at the beginning of the SLL conception, each sustained by a major business partner: healthy nutrition to cope with frailty, improved autonomous mobility to foster independence and social communication to prevent isolation. This article shows the innovative transdisciplinary approach of the SLL and discusses the particular challenges that emerged during the first year of its creation, investigating the role of ICTs when designing products and services for older adults.
Highlights
We live in an ageing society where the increasing older population depends on the shrinking working-age population
In this paper, discussing the first year of life of the Senior Living Lab, we will focus on the theoretical innovations that we propose for our specific goal of designing products and services for older adults and on the controversial role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for this target population
We aim to provide a framework depicting the key methodologies that have been implemented in the field, discussing the specificities mentioned in this article, i.e., the transdisciplinary approach, as well as the role of technologies in a living lab from the perspective of older adults that participated in-tandem with university researchers
Summary
We live in an ageing society where the increasing older population depends on the shrinking working-age population. According to Pallot et al [6] “Living Labs are standing at the crossroads of different society trends like citizens engaged into a more participative approach, businesses and local authorities as well as user communities are gathering within public-private–people partnership initiatives. They are at the crossroads of different paradigms and technological streams such as Future Internet, Open Innovation, User co-Creation, User Content Creation and Social Interaction (Web2.0), Mass Collaboration (i.e., Wikipedia), and Cloud Computing where the Internet is the cloud, named “the disappearing IT infrastructure”.”
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