The perks and struggles of participatory approaches: Exploring older persons’ experiences of participating in designing and developing an application

Abstract

Background: Innovative multidisciplinary and person-centred initiatives are needed to promote well-being among older persons. In order to approach these goals, both health promotion and the field of innovation studies recognise the importance of the meaningful engagement of older persons in development processes. Participatory approaches are applied within technology development, but previous studies highlight a lack of knowledge about how they matter—especially for the persons who are participating in the co-creation process. Objective: The study explores older persons’ experiences of participating in an innovation project. Method: The study is part of the @geing Online project. Semi-structured interviews were conducted at several intervals during and after the project in two regions in Finland and were analysed using thematic analysis. In total, 38 older individuals participated. Results: The older persons perceived that participating in an innovation project can be an uplifting experience that increases their interest and confidence in digital technology use by combating stereotypes. Additionally, being able to make one’s own and other older persons’ voices heard regarding services targeting older persons in collaboration with local universities was also perceived as valuable. However, the participation did not fully live up to all the older participants’ expectations. Feelings of disappointment emerged in relation to their own performance with the prototypes being developed, as well as the fear of failing the project team. Additional sources of disappointment were related to the fact that the participants did not increase their knowledge of new and familiar digital technology to the extent that they had hoped. Conclusion: The findings of this study highlight experiences of taking part in an innovation project focusing on technology design with a participatory approach, depicting the benefits, motivators, and challenges. This kind of knowledge is important in order to improve future participatory practice in gerontechnology endeavours.