EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The U-Sentric co-design roadmap is a little
book that you can follow from step one until the end, although Verians points out that it’s not quite as simple as following a recipe. “It’s an iterative process,” she says. “It’s about learning and getting involved and that’s how we want to work with AAL projects, to help them do this thing the right way, learning every step of the way.” “The point is that the roadmap is creating
one common understanding between everyone from research stage to development stage,” adds Schepers. “What can happen is the project says ‘Okay, we research something, then the designers make a visual design or wire frame, then there’s development’. The danger here,” he continues, “is that they are working in silos and not understanding together at each stage. “What we want to do is bring teams
together to avoid this misunderstandin so, it’s not only valuable for the users but it’s also valuable for the people producing the product. There is a common goal.” This co-design process will often require a change of mindset within a company and the entire company must be involved. So what exactly is involved? Nicolas explains: “The roadmap is basically a framework
of methodologies to follow step by step,” he says. At the core of each methodology is the ‘persona’. Basically you do research involving interviews or surveys, to understand what the basic needs are for certain target groups. You then take the extremes of what you find out and develop ‘personas’. You can then give it a name, create a picture and you end up with someone who you are developing for. You can then tick off which aspects of the product’s design work for each persona, almost as though you are visualising that end user. “So, instead of making a report about your
user research, you make personas out of it. That’s actually the core of each methodology use in the roadmap. “In our project ‘AAL Inspiration’ we first
made a wire frame out of the user needs, tested them, checked them off, reviewed them and saw what works and what doesn’t. It’s a lot more cost efficient because instead of developing everything in the project, we’ve actually cut about 25 per cent of
36 | AAL FORUM 2014
the features before development because we know they won’t work and that the user doesn’t want them.” Another key aspect of co-creation is
communication. Not only is this important during the development phase, but also once the product has been developed and it is ready to go to market. Here, communication will be key to ensuring the right message is conveyed that ensures the product appeals to the people you know it should appeal to.
GOOD SOLUTIONS NOT JUST THE
I
believe in network management. As an insurer, we are only able to do the financial part of any solution, so we need partners in the field who want to deliver the services. I believe we need to have good solutions for everyone and not just designed for the elderly. It should be
one market for all consumers. So we have to make good connections that bring together all stakeholders – the finance, the home care, the support services, we all need to work together. When we do business like this, we can see good growth, locally, regionally, nationally and globally. As a member of the AAL Advisory Board, I always advise
people to look to the consumer, listen to the end user and then build your business. So when you have an idea, go to the end user to see if they like it and if you then decide to develop it, make sure that there is a willingness to pay for it. When the price is too high, or people are not prepared to
Jannelien Verjans and Nicolas Schepers
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