Mobile Age: Co-creating Digital Public Services with and for Older Citizens

The co-creation projects reported in this book were part of the EU-funded project Mobile Age¹ in which digital public services were co-created with substantial participation of older citizens. The overall aim of Mobile Age was to develop and test methods for co-creating open digital services for age-friendly cities and communities. This included objectives such as

So far, older adults are using the internet and in particular, eGovernment services to a much lesser degree than other age groups (digital divide as age divide). Mobile Age assumed that a way to make digital services more attractive and beneficial for older adults was to involve them in the process of identifying, conceptualising and designing relevant and usable digital services. As such, Mobile Age followed and extended an approach to co-creation that exceeds traditional ways of citizen participation. It explored, developed and tested new methods and tools.

This book is based on three of the six co-creation projects conducted in Mobile Age: two in Bremen, Germany and one Zaragoza, Spain. In a first phase, a pilot co-creation project was conducted in Bremen (district Osterholz) from May 2016 to February 2017. The learnings from this project fed into the planning and implementation of two further projects from May 2017 to February 2018: In a second district in Bremen (Hemelingen) and in Zaragoza to experiment with different forms of engaging stakeholders, project governance and methods. In this book, I have selected the two co-creation processes from Bremen for an in-depth analysis and the co-creation process from Zaragoza as a comparative case. The reason is that both, Bremen and Zaragoza, had a focus on information services concerning the neighbourhood in urban settings by relating to policy objectives such as age-friendly cities and communities. The projects ran over a similar length of time while following different governance structures, engagement strategies and co-creation methods. There is hence enough commonality and difference to provide a meaningful comparison between the three projects in relation to the sharing of control and expertise as well as the enabling of change.

A co-creation project can be roughly split into four phases (1) a planning phase in which a problem focus of the project is determined; (2) a phase in which the problem area is explored and co-creators decide on a joint problem definition and articulate a value proposition; (3) a phase that develops and evaluates possible solutions; and (4) the post-project phase in which the service runs (Fig. 1). The chapters that report on our co-creation projects in Bremen and Zaragoza are concerned with the second phase (find the right problem) and third phase (find the right solution). Because of the logic of funded research projects, much of the planning had to be done prior to the project start for the funding proposal (see also Bischof & Jarke, forthcoming). In a first attempt to receive project funding, we left the planning deliberately open in order to increase the scope for action in the co-creation projects. This was however rejected by the funding agency because proposals needed to be very specific on how and why they would spend taxpayer money. In the project proposal that received funding, we provided a frame for the problem focus, the problem definition itself was co-created with older adults, social care service providers and local governments during the co-creation projects. The running of the service also lies outside of the scope of a funded research project. However, we allowed ample time to ensure the sustainability of the services developed. For now, I outline the results of the first phase (the problem focus) as this had implications for the choice and adaptation of methods in the subsequent phases.

An illustration depicts the plan with co-creation project, find the right problem with explore and define, right solution with develop and prototype, and run service.

When considering and planning a co-creation project (phase 1) there are a number of aspects to consider which frame and determine the project. Similar to a business model canvas one can depict the key dimensions of a co-creation project in a canvas (see Fig. 2). Initially, there needs to be a general idea about the problem focus and target audience. As the co-creation project proceeds the problem focus will become more refined (phase 2—find the right problem) and a solution is being developed (phase 3—find the right solution). This process is at the heart of co-creation and shaped by those engaged from the target audience and by key partners. The role that co-creators assume in a co-creation project depends on the relationship they have to the problem area and their willingness and ability to become engaged. Another relevant aspect are the communication and engagement channels (e.g. how citizens are approached and recruited to the co-creation project; how the service will be delivered). In addition, it is important to consider the existing resources (e.g. of a neighbourhood) that may support a service and what kind of activities are suitable and required in order to engage with the target audience and key partners in a meaningful and targeted way. For the sustainability and maintenance of the proposed solution (phase 4), the revenue streams and cost structure need to be evaluated.

A box model with separations depicts the key partners, activities, resources, problem focus, definition and solution, relationship, channels, and revenue stream with their attributes.

These aspects are described in more detailed in the following. I will start with the problem focus of Mobile Age and detail the specific foci of Bremen and Zaragoza. Subsequently the target audiences and key partners are described. I provide a summary of key resources and subsequently refine the problem definitions & value propositions. This includes a summary of the solution: output, outcome and sustainability of the co-created services. Finally, key activities are reviewed considering how methods from e.g. co-production, co-design and civic open data use may be adopted to suit the needs of our co-creation projects. The chapter concludes with a summary of the Mobile Age co-creation methodology.

One of the basic assumptions of Mobile Age was that if digital services are more relevant to older adults and more user-friendly, they may raise interest in and use of digital public services (even for those with little or no digital skills). The corresponding term in the digital agendas of the European Commission and EU Member States is “e-inclusion”. The main reason for political action in the field of e-inclusion is the risk of excluding those citizens that are not digitally literate and do not use digital media. In other words e-exclusion increases social exclusion. Thus, social inclusion and e-inclusion were two mutually depending policy aims of the Mobile Age project and the co-creation processes. The co-creation processes described in this book focused in particular on “social participation” (Bremen) and “a safe and accessible city for older citizens” (Zaragoza).

At the start of the Mobile Age project, the target audience was defined as older adults (>60). In chapter “Ageing Societies and Technological Innovation”, I argued that even though older adults are not a homogeneous group and differ for example with regard to their personal resources (e.g. social capital, financial resources), aspirations and abilities, it does make sense to group them as a “target audience” of public services—based on life events—and of digital public services—based on their birth-cohort shared experiences with (media) technologies.

A digital application on its own cannot solve social problems. As discussed in chapter “Ageing Societies and Technological Innovation”, the striving to “fix” social problems through technology, produces its own manifestations of these “problems” (e.g. old age as problem that needs to be fixed). Rather, a digital information service can only complement and inform about existing (neighbourhood) resources and/or support local service providers in their service provision. Hence, the target audience of a digital information service, mainly includes those older adults who are also targeted by the resources it provides information about. People in their Fourth Age (Laslett, 1987, 1991) can benefit from neighbourhood-related digital information services when intermediaries (such as family and service providers) are considered as well. For example in the case of Bremen, neighbourhood managers, as well as community managers and social care service providers can use digital information services in the communication with older adults. Apart from older adults as co-creators broadly representing the target audience, other key partners had to be involved in order to develop a service, which is comprehensive, sustainable and embedded in the neighbourhood.

An illustration depicts the local government, intermediaries, other organizations and individuals, software developers, older citizens, facilitators, and service providers.

The roles as depicted in Fig. 3 are partly overlapping. Intermediaries serve as information brokers and provide information about services, events and resources in digital or printed form to different groups of older adults. They may be professional neighbourhood managers, social workers in the field of elderly care or volunteers in community building, editors of community newsletters or city web portals, but also family members and acquaintances. In addition to older adults, intermediaries are the second target audience and user group of the services to be developed (as it should support their daily work). Considering the digital divide, they play an important role in making the content of a co-created digital service available to older citizens. It is hence important, that they provide input for specific tasks in the co-creation process.

Social care service providers are offering services to older adults in the neighbourhood. They include government units, utilities such as transport providers, social welfare organisations, religious congregations, NGOs, and commercial business (cafés, pharmacies etc.). They are the subject of the information service to be co-created. They may provide information about themselves and the details of their services and they have to agree to the publication of these data. In many cases, local/regional government and public administrations will be initiating and managing the co-creation activities to provide financial resources, become the owner of the new service and maintain it.

A co-creation process needs facilitators as convenors and moderators. Facilitators in Mobile Age were either researchers (in Bremen) or experienced individuals in the work with older adults and/or groups (in Zaragoza). They supported the co-creation activities through, for example, running workshops, focus groups, and interviews. A digital service needs to be developed by software developers. Developing a user-centred application may be undertaken by IT-departments of the local government (Zaragoza), research institutes (Bremen), commercial companies or civil society organisations such as the Open Knowledge Foundation.

Overall, the problem focus and domains of interest in the Mobile Age project related to different domains for age-friendly cities and communities as proposed by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Between the pilot sites, we had an overlap of topics as Bremen and Zaragoza shared an interest in map-based services and the importance of local infrastructure for supporting ageing-in-place. These services related to digital information and communication services (and not transaction or integration) about existing neighbourhood resources.

Figure 4 depicts the interrelation of age-friendly neighbourhood resources and the personal resources of its older residents. There exists a plethora of information about the resources of a neighbourhood, however in order to participate in social life and use those resources, they need to be accessible to older adults. A digital service may complement the information about these resources (but cannot substitute for them).

An illustration depicts how personal and age-friendly neighborhood resources are linked through digital information services, social inclusion, and e-inclusion.

For engaging senior citizens to co-create a digital service that meets their needs and that offers gratifications to a larger group of older adults, information about the resources in their immediate neighbourhood has proven to be a good starting point. The co-creation process as conducted in Zaragoza also allowed for a communication service in that the citizens could propose changes to the built environment (addition grey arrows) (Fig. 5).

An illustration depicts how personal and age-friendly neighborhood resources are linked through digital public service, social participation, and e-inclusion.

In Mobile Age, we identified a number of streams of activity that need to be considered for the co-creation of digital public services. These streams of activity are not sequential but run in parallel and inform each other.

These streams of activity need to facilitate the sharing of knowledge and control amongst participants and across participants and facilitators as well as enable opportunities for individual and social change. In the co-design literature, there exists a manifold of research papers and studies presenting tools and methods to involve users through e.g. cultural probes (e.g. Boehner, Vertesi, Sengers, & Dourish, 2007; Jarke & Maaß, 2018); personas and scenario-based design (e.g. Alexander & Maiden, 2004; Carroll, 2000; Neate, Bourazeri, Roper, Stumpf, & Wilson, 2019) or walks (e.g. Hunter, 2018; Kanstrup, Bertelsen, & Østergaard Madsen, 2014). However, there is only limited experience in the adaptation of these methods for digital public service design, which comes with its specific requirements in terms of scalability, accountability and sustainability.

One of the most common ways of eliciting users’ expertise in co-production as well as co-design projects are workshops in which teams of researchers, service providers, future users and other stakeholders come together to identify challenges and develop new ideas. Depending on the design context and the quality of user participation, the interpretative weight of the design team differs. For example, Bødker, Grønbæk, and Kyng (2012) doubt whether personas are helpful in designing public services because those defining the personas cannot really comprehend and represent the heterogeneity of the target population and future users. This is in line with reports that in the case of user participation in government services, government officials doubt the relation between user participation and later acceptance because nobody can tell to which extent the people who are interested to participate represent the target user group of a service (Gidlund, 2012). Overall, there are three challenges to user participation in digital public service design, that need to be considered: (1) the target user (segments) need to be identified clearly; (2) the modes of participation need to be in line with democratic goals and (3) if citizens lack sufficient ability and skills the successful outcome may be endangered (Karlsson, Holgersson, Söderström, & Hedström, 2012).

Each of the phases in a co-creation process has its own conditions; they each require different types of methods. Figure 6 provides an overview about the four distinct stages of co-creating a digital public service (as described in Fig. 1): its planning, its design (defining the problem and developing a solution) and its provision. The figure lists some indicative methods for each of the phases and related objectives. A detailed description of each of the methods can be found in the interactive guidebook we developed after the finalisation of the Mobile Age project.²

An illustration depicts the plan with a scope problem area, find the right problem with explore life words of participation, a right solution with scenario-based design, and run service.

The abstract concepts of use and user as promoted in many participatory projects, encourage particular practices while discouraging others (Gidlund, 2012, p. 18). It is hence important to consider how different methods produce different subject-positions of citizens as co-creators. Interviews, focus groups, prototyping or user testing are well-known methods in design projects and power relations have been well-covered (e.g. Carroll, 2000; Carroll & Rosson, 2007; Neate et al., 2019; Oates, 2006; Sanders & Stappers, 2008; Simonsen & Robertson, 2013). In the following, attention is paid to methods that are less known for their use in co-creation settings and it is explored how they can be adapted to contribute to the objectives described above in Fig. 6:

The focus is on phases 2 (find the right problem) and 3 (find the right solution). Probes, standardised forms and data walks are introduced below and their application in Mobile Age described in the respective chapters reporting from our co-creation projects in Bremen Osterholz (probes and standardised forms), Bremen Hemelingen and Zaragoza (walks and standardised forms). In chapter “Learning from Co-Creation Practice”, the methods are analysed and discussed across the three co-creation projects, considering their suitability for facilitating the sharing of power, the sharing of expertise and the enabling of individual and social change in co-creation with older adults.

Wieringa and van Es (2018) have mapped a number of different formats each comprising of different set-ups and goals. For example Greenfield and Kim (2011) set out to raise awareness/literacy on “networked urbanism” among citizens. Van Zoonen, Hirzalla, Engelbert, Zuijderwijk, and Schokker (2017) took city employees on walks through their own smart city. While Greenfield and Kim only delimited an area on a map, Van Zoonen et al. defined the routes beforehand. The focus of their walks was “identifying big data in the city and connecting it to political and ethical issues” (Wieringa & van Es, 2018). In so doing, Van Zoonen et al. not only raised awareness on data issues amongst civil servants, they also learned about the knowledge and beliefs of their participants with respect to the datafication of their city. Building on Greenfield and Kim, Powell (2018) experimented with different forms of data walks: initially to teach students about big data related to urban issues, later to create “bottom-up knowledge”. In her walks, participants assumed different roles from note-taker to photographers. Yet another format of data walks was conducted by Hunter (2018), who did not only want to raise awareness amongst participants but also collect environmental data on specific areas and built multi-layered “dataspaces”. Table 1 provides an overview on these different types of walks.

In sum, one question that civic open data approaches such as data walks allow to ask is what kind of (digital) information are relevant and useful to (a variety of) older adults and what kinds of data, data visualisations and data processing (e.g. filtering, searching) are required in order to provide information about neighbourhoods. These are questions that relate to the ways in which information about neighbourhoods are being classified and presented in e.g. pocket guides, catalogues or leaflets.