EXECUTIVE SUMMARY


CO-CREATING BETTER AAL PRODUCTS


Involving the user in the development of your AAL product is not only sensible, but vital if you are to receive funding. But there’s a lot more to user-centric design than holding workshops and asking older people if they like what they see. Co-creation involves the user at every step of the way and not only leads to better products but saves time and money as well


J Jannelien Verjans


annelien Verjans and Nicolas Schepers both work for U-Sentric, a company specialising in involving people in the design process so that the resulting product or service exactly meets the


user’s needs and desires. Both were involved in an interactive session as part of the “Matching older adults’ aspirations” track during which they ran a co-creation workshop, which saw delegates design a product with the help of a user.


Co-creation is one of the central themes of


AAL. Projects must include user interaction in the proposal, while business modelling that involves the target group is also a crucial aspect of any development plan. U-Sentric has developed a co- creation roadmap that essentially answers crucial questions to do with the user. What does your user want? How can you respond to it and how can you integrate those user needs within your project but also within you roadmap to market? “A lot of products are made based on user


insights and user needs but then they go to the market and these aren’t planned into the marketing strategy,” says Verjans. “When you develop your idea, it is simple to


involve your end users within that process,” she continues. “But you must be able to take those user needs and user insights to create some value within your market and how can you sell it to your market. In that sense, you need to stay in touch with your users throughout the process and afterwards.”


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