NESTORE: co-design for aging well

NESTORE: Older co-researchers developing novel empowering solutions to stay autonomous and healthy as we age

BACKGROUND/HISTORY AND CONTEXT OF THE WORKSHOP

    NESTORE is a European research project aiming to deliver novel empowering solutions for older people to stay well as they age. Technological innovations will be harnessed and manifested as a set of user-friendly devices: NESTORE through which personalized advice to promote wellbeing will be delivered. 

   As a set of smart and user-friendly devices, NESTORE is a friend and a coach understanding our needs, mood and preferences, to propose activities and services matching our personality, environment and health status: the piece of advice when we need it and how we need it. 

   Recently there has been a proliferation of devices (e.g.) Google Home or Amazon Alexa that have shown the great potential of multifunction tangible objects to provide assistance at home. Yet ensuring these highly technical projects are developed hand-in-hand with populations that are in general quite afar from those technologies can be a challenge.

   NESTORE teamed up with skilled experts in co-creation to make sure older persons would be seating on the driver seats of our research and innovation processes.

 

MAIN AIM / OBJECTIVE

   The workshop offers the opportunity to build understanding of a number of approaches to engaging older people in co-designing technologies associated with improving wellbeing. Participants will hear how design and design researchers are using innovative research methods to create the space where older people with diverse abilities, lived experiences and backgrounds are given a voice and opportunity to inform the design of digital products and services.
    The specific co-creation methodology within NESTORE will be described and individuals attending the workshop will then have the opportunity to engage with and reflect on some of these methods.
     Insights developed through the NESTORE project in relation to co-creation will be shared and there will then be the opportunity for workshop participants to offer their reflections. In this way, individuals attending the session will contribute to the ongoing development and dissemination of these approaches beyond the project’s pilot borders.
 

EXPECTED OUTCOMES

   The workshop will provide participants with new knowledge and tools to make their co-design, co-creation and co-production practices more inclusive, especially when involving older age groups or groups with little confidence or experience of using digital technology.

   Understanding will be gained in relation to a number of methods including object-elicitation, cultural probes and more specifically ‘Exhibition-in-a-box’.

   It is anticipated that through engaging in broader discussion that individuals will leave the workshop with a broader understanding of a range of examples of best practice in the context of co-design and co-production within Europe.

   The session offers an opportunity for the workshop facilitators to receive feedback and to critically reflect on their methods and to meet new partners for consortium building and future transnational experimentation.

BRIEF OUTLINE / METHODOLOGY

   Prof. Chamberlain and Dr. Craig are co-directors of Lab4Living, a design led interdisciplinary research group from the Sheffield Hallam University in the United Kingdom (and member of ENoLL). The Living Lab focuses on research with people to inform the development of products services and interventions that support wellbeing and promote quality of life. They have a strong track record in developing methods of engagement and of co-design. 

   The workshop will begin with a description of the broader context of co-design in the field of developing digital technologies to promote well-being and of the opportunities and challenges this space presents. A description of design-led methods will be offered. 

   Mirroring the methodology used in NESTORE, workshop’s participants will be invited to engage in an experiential workshop using a co-design tool ‘Exhibition-in-a-box’. Here nine objects contained in a box ‘à la Duchamp’ are used to stimulate and scaffold thinking. 

These objects will form the basis of discussion and exploration in the context of digital technology and the workshop will end with a broader reflection of the process and feedback on the experience of taking part.

LINKS

Worshop Facilitators

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