Concept and Methodology
In order to meet the needs of the elderly people the process of developing end user driven service concepts is based on action research. Interventions of action research can be seen as a practical, participative, reflective and social process. In action research, as a process, there are different cycles following each other and in each of them four phases can be identified as observing, reflecting, planning and implementing. The purpose of this iterative way of service design is to develop and integrate products, services and technique as tailor made and end user driven solutions for elderly people.
The end users and selected experts as focus groups will be interviewed three times, answers will be analyzed and changes according to them will be taken into account in the development processes. In interaction with elderly people as end users their social activities can be facilitated and added. Service design based on action research leads to develop new kinds of games with and for elderly people, which they are willing to approve and which they will find meaningful in many ways because they have been involved.
By participating they also will build new kind of social interaction forms which lead to form groups for themselves with feelings that they belong to somewhere and theyhave their own peer groups. All project partners will be involved in this end user driven development process from the beginning of the project, which ensure the exploitation of the project achievements into concrete products for a short time-to-market.
