Co-creation and co-design Milestone reached

During October the MATUROLIFE consortium reached an important milestone! Over the summer we have run a series of co-creation workshops to develop new footwear, clothing and furniture solutions that embed smart textiles. The emerging prototypes aim to provide functional, fashionable, desirable and acceptable assistive technologies that help people maintain their independence as they age

In total 10 co-creation workshops have been held across 9 EU countries with more than 90 participants taking part in creative exercises to express their needs, preferences, priorities and design ideas.

Older people’s needs and perceptions were explored through a two-stage workshop process. After understanding the end users’ conceptualizations of independence better and having advanced the individual product specifications, the preliminary design direction was agreed. In the second stage, functionalities were prioritized and advanced through ideation and design development activities.

This has provided an excellent foundation for our ongoing design development. The material and technical specifications of our developing products are now being discussed through close collaboration between designers, technologists and material scientists. We continue to consult with older adults and wider stakeholders as the products develop and we integrate smart materials and mechanisms for feeding back vital information to the user in order to support their health and independence.

We want to use this opportunity to thank all our workshop participants for their great motivation and valuable contributions during the process!

Read more about our ambition here – and stay tuned for news