Experiences from User Centric Engineering of Ambient Assisted Living Technologies in the

Living Lab Schwechat

Paul Panek1,3, Walter Hlauschek1, Manfred Schrenk2, Katharina Werner1, Wolfgang L. Zagler1,3 1Ceit Raltec, Concorde Business Park 2/F, 2320 Schwechat, Austria,

{p.panek,w.hlauschek,k.werner}@ceit.at 2Ceit Alanova, Concorde Business Park 2/F, 2320 Schwechat, Austria, m.schrenk@ceit.at

3Vienna Univ. of Technology, 1040 Wien, Favoritenstrasse 11/029, {pp,zw}@fortec.tuwien.ac.at

Abstract

The municipality of Schwechat has initiated several programmes to boost the ICT research and development as well as the concrete usage of ICT in daily life in order to allow individuals and the local community to participate in the e-society and to gain benefits provided by upcoming ICT.

By applying the Living Lab framework, users are involved during the requirement gathering and development processes as early as possible and throughout the whole process. The paper describes the current structure of the Living Lab (LL), the methodologies deployed for user-centred design and development and outlines the experiences gained to date. During the first five years, about ten RTD projects were started in the LL and the first have already been successfully completed. It could be shown that the user-centred approach, the set of methodologies available in a Living Lab and the multi stakeholder involvement would be very helpful in designing and developing prototypes (and future products) which actually meet daily living needs.

Keywords

Living Lab, user-centred design (UCD), Ambient Assisted Living (AAL), assistive technology, older persons

1 Introduction and Aim

As part of the local eSchwechat.at initiative (2005-2009) several activities and projects were started in the city of Schwechat in order to support economic and scientific ICT activities and to improve the access to state of the art ICT for local citizens. A Living Lab (LL) was initiated to actively involve citizens right from the beginning of an RTD project. One branch of the Living Lab in Schwechat focused on the development of ICT systems for older persons and carers (cf. AAL - Ambient Assisted Living [Meyer, et al. 2010], [Georgieff 2008], [Meyer, et al. 2009]). Key actors were the older persons themselves, a center for senior citizens, the research institute Ceit with its two institutes Ceit Raltec and Ceit Alanova, the seniors advisory board, the mobile care providers and the municipality of Schwechat.

The aim of this paper is to outline both the user-centred approach and the type of work being currently carried out in the Living Lab in the area of ICT for older persons and caregivers. The paper sets forth a rather pragmatic approach by attempting to explain work that is actually taking place and focuses on describing the findings and lessons learned with reference to other LL and concurrent engineering literature [Eriksson, et al. 2006], [Niitamo, et al. 2006], [Schumacher, Niitamo 2008].

2 The Living Lab

2.1 History

The Living Lab in Schwechat was conceived as part of the eSchwechat.at initiative which also led to the establishment of the Ceit research institute working in urban planning, ICT and technology for older persons. In 2006, the first project with older persons was carried out in the Senior Center, one of the most important stakeholders and research partners of Ceit in the LL. More projects followed, some with residents of the Senior Center, some with older persons, carried out in private homes. In 2008, the LL Schwechat joined the European Network of Living Labs [ENoLL].

Figure 1: Symbolic presentation of key actors and stakeholders in Living Lab Schwechat focusing on developing Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) technologies

2.2 Key Actors and Stakeholders

The following entities play a significant role in the LL Schwechat (cf. Figure 1):

Municipality of Schwechat (SW): The municipality is a site of traditional industry, housing and among other things, it is home to a refinery, a traditional brewery and to Vienna’s international airport. Based on these initial conditions SW also started the eSchwechat.at initiative with the aim to establish the municipality as an ICT innovation area. SW founded and acts as owner of the Ceit-Institute forming the core of the Living Lab and supports Ceit’s activities through a basic funding. Since the city operates a seniors’ home for elderly people living in Schwechat, the local government authorities are very interested in new technologies supporting the autonomous living of the older population [Hlauschek, et al. 2009].

Senior Center Schwechat: running a nursing station (22 beds), independent living apartments (69) and a day care center (30 guests per day). The center provides advice, assistance and care and is also involved in networking and research (cf. advisory board and

cooperation platform). The Senior Center is owned and financed by the municipality. Founded 15 years ago, the center has been innovative since its inception (e.g. using key cards instead of traditional keys) and supporting old persons to live as independently as possible with the help of individually tailored support measures [Senior Center].

Advisory board of senior citizens (“Seniorenbeirat”): Its mission is to collect and forward requests from senior citizens in Schwechat, to discuss important topics in the context of senior care in Schwechat, and to organize and coordinate leisure activities for senior citizens. It consists of representatives of organizations for senior citizens in Schwechat and members of the municipal council of Schwechat.

Cooperation Platform: Regular meetings between representatives of the Senior Center and mobile care providing institutions to share information, to discuss topics of care provision in the local context and to plan and implement joint projects (as e.g. the demo apartment [Demonstration Apartment]).

CEIT research institutes: Ceit Raltec and Ceit Alanova carry out RTD projects and scientific studies in the fields of urban planning and regional development and special technologies for rehabilitation and Ambient Assisted Living (AAL).

SME and industry: involved via local association “Wirtschaftsplattform Schwechat” and through the research consortia, carrying out user-centric work in the LL.

The members of the advisory board often contribute significantly in their role as multipliers to identify further persons interested in joining workshops and field trial activities in the LL.

2.3 Projects carried out

The projects carried out varied in different aspects like time-to-market, degree of user involvement, research/education, type of field trials, level of risks, etc. However, all of them focused on the research and development of new systems for empowering older adults to live a life as independently as possible. One of the first projects was to develop and evaluate a touch screen based video phone for older persons [Oberzaucher, et al. 2009], other projects focused on distributed approaches for fall detection [Diermaier, et al. 2008], [Werner, et al. 2011], [Mayer, et al. 2011], on wearable computing [Oberzaucher, et al. 2010], [Softcare], portals for seniors to access social networks [Farkas, et al. 2010], bus stops for seniors [Schrenk, et al. 2010] or tablet PCs for seniors [MyTablet].

Figure 2: Iterative cycles in the development process

2.4 Methods applied

User centric methods often applied in the LL were focus groups with older adults [Oberzaucher, et al. 2010], [Panek, et al. 2008], interviews with users and carers [Werner, et al. 2011], [Panek, et al. 2007], workshop meetings with users and care experts for requirement gathering via low

fidelity prototypes and for presentation of results, different types of evaluation activities (from lab tests to field trials) [Zagler, et al. 2009], [Schumacher, et al. 2007], [Bergvall-Kåreborn, et al. 2010], [Wilson, et al. 2008]. An iterative approach (cf. Figure 2) is used in nearly all cases.

2.5 Management, Structure and Organisation

Up to now, the organisational structure has been freely developed and mainly organised by core partners Ceit and Senior Center. Important tools and means consist of the monthly meetings between Ceit and representatives of the Senior Center and regular but not so frequent meetings of the Cooperation Platform (mobile care providers).

Safety, risk management and ethically correct involvement of vulnerable users are key issues [Zagler, et al. 2008], [Rauhala, et al. 2005], [Rauhala 2010] for sustainable work.

Dissemination within the LL is done by regular articles in the freely distributed newspaper “Ganz Schwechat” in close cooperation with the Senior Center, internal newsletters sent out to all persons who previously participated in trials and presentation booths at local events (e.g. summer festival of the Senior Center).

Thus far, there has been no dedicated funding for the LL. The funding is indirect, e.g. through initial funding for Ceit, by the municipality’s ownership of the Senior Center (also indirectly paying the working costs for staff that are working in joint projects of the LL). The same holds true, thus far to a lesser extent, for cooperation projects with mobile care providers.

Quality control is done in several ways, e.g. by ethical review and guidance [Rauhala, et al. 2005], [Rauhala 2010]; by using informal feedback mechanisms to communicate findings and recommendations from the point of view of social workers towards the research team. This type of feedback is regularly done during monthly meetings of Ceit and the Senior Center. Another method applied is to add specific sections in the questionnaires used during field trials. Some of these questions do not ask the users for comments on the prototype system itself but ask for users’ comments and experiences on the way the user involvement was done.

2.6 Networking

Networking is done internally (in the LL) mainly by the Senior Center and by Ceit, at the regional level, in particular, through close cooperation with TU Vienna [Zagler, et al. 2009] [Rauhala, et al. 2005] [Rauhala 2010] and at an international level (contacts to partner city Gladbeck in Germany, scientific contacts and upcoming cooperation with partners in Finland, Slovenia, Italy). Membership in ENoLL needs to be mentioned here.

3 Initial Results and Lessons learned

Important results of the activities carried out thus far are a well-established, heterogeneous group of older adults who already have familiarity in participating in LL activities, an effectively working internal network between stakeholders (Senior Center, advisory committee, mobile care providers, municipality, Ceit), fruitful academic and practical contacts to other similar activities in Europe (Italy, Finland, ENoLL) and several successfully completed projects which were carried out in the LL.

One of the flagship projects is the setting up of a “demo-apartment” in the Senior Center [Demo-Apartment] in 2009. This project was initiated and organised by the team of the Senior Center supported by the municipality, Ceit and mobile care providers. A dedicated flat was equipped with already available assistive technology and offers the possibility to test technical aids and provide hands-on experience in real life settings for seniors as well as family and staff. Many companies have followed the invitation to support the project and have provided products for free. The demo-apartment can be visited by anyone interested and explanations are given by professional technical engineers and experienced nursing staff. The flat is also used to provide

some insight in upcoming future systems by exhibiting some selected research prototypes [Werner, et al. 2011] and to gather feedback on those prototypes from the visitors of the demo flat (cf. Figure 3).

Other projects cover for example touch screen based internet telephony for older adults, fall detection systems (wearable and ambient), access to social networks or studying the emerging tablet devices regarding usage benefits for older adults.

Figure 3: Hands on presentation of assistive home research prototype “eHome” in demo apartment of LL Schwechat

Issues which came up are discussed below and provide some concrete examples of the research context in which they became known:

Speaking the same language: ICT researchers and users not necessarily speak “the same language” which can cause non trivial communication problems [Panek 2007]. Some expressions might either not be understood by people who are not familiar with modern ICT or even scare them off. It turned out that a device is often perceived in a nicer way when it is called by a fictitious name instead of “computer”. Some people who initially said that they “would never touch a computer” had fun and no problems at all using the “interactive picture frame” [Oberzaucher, et al. 2009].

Person of trust: For sorting out problems it was found to be of high value to have social worker / care persons on board who are well familiar with the test persons and can communicate with them on a meta level (with regard to the project level). The eHome project [Werner, et al. 2011] [Mayer, et al. 2011] for example is a very sensitive project as the researchers get a very detailed insight into the living situation of the person and his/her daily activities. All participants in the eHome field trials somehow had a relation either to the Ceit project team because of taking part in previous projects or another person who knew the project team well, or who had already participated in the trial. Therefore, the necessary level of trust had been achieved.

Recruiting users: First users were recruited with the help of LL partners Senior Center and advisory board. After initial successful projects, it also turned out that involved users helped us by recruiting other persons they knew as additional new users for upcoming LL activities. This is obviously a very positive indicator. On the other hand, being successful in establishing an active group of older adults participating in LL activities brings up a new issue: persons who are closely connected to these activities might be biased e.g. when giving their comments and opinions about prototypes to be evaluated.

Top down / Bottom up: After having “defined” a LL (top down) in 2005/06 it was up to the persons and institutions involved to actually develop concrete activities and common understanding based on first successfully working together (bottom up). Luckily, both approaches met in the middle.

Time and efforts needed: Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) and assistive technology supporting older adults are very relevant topics for European society. User-oriented research and technical development in these areas do need a significantly high amount of time and resources in order to come up with innovations which are mature enough to enable sustainable improvements regarding quality of life of older persons and carers (cf. our “demo apartment” project).

Other issues: lack of time with the mobile care providers, positive feedback from involved users asking us and our LL partners for status updates, progress and next steps to which they can contribute. In some specific cases, it is difficult or may not even be possible to evaluate research prototypes with the real target user group (e.g. persons with mild dementia and/or persons prone to fall frequently cannot test pure research prototypes with not yet guaranteed performance levels due to ethical, practical and legal reasons).

Awareness regarding working LL: The wording “LL” does not seem to be that clear. What involved persons definitively consider much more important are the concrete activities and approaches which take place in daily life under the umbrella of a Living Lab.

Nevertheless, as time (and concrete projects and activities) proceed, the meaning of LL in the persons’ mind gets more filled with concrete, unique experiences and thus is used more often by involved persons than in the beginning.

4 Summary and Outlook

The Living Lab for AAL technologies in Schwechat follows a rather pragmatic approach using a subset of methodologies known from literature and partly adapts it to specific situations. After five years of work in the LL, the results are very promising. A user club of older adults engaged in the LL activities could be established, an informal structure of regular meetings between core partners and regular meetings of other partners (mobile care providers) proved to meet the needs. Several projects could be completed successfully; involved partners are satisfied and very active in continuing with this endeavour. National and international contacts and working cooperation are established with other LLs and/or interested institutions for mutual fruitful knowledge exchange. In the future, these exchanges are planned to be extended. While the idea of a LL is understood very differently in literature and in the LL community, the concrete pragmatic approach chosen in Schwechat has proven to be a good choice.

Acknowledgements

The Living Lab Schwechat is an activity launched within the eSchwechat.at initiative which was run by the municipality of Schwechat 2005-2009. The research institutes CEIT Alanova and CEIT Raltec are owned by the municipality of Schwechat and are carrying out RTD projects funded by various sources, in particular EU, FFG and private companies. We are grateful for the support given by the city administration. Our special thanks goes to all the volunteers participating in the LL activities, to Helene Meissl and Ulrike Barta and the team of the Senior Center and the representatives from mobile care organisations for their valuable contributions and support.

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