Exploring participation needs and motivational requirements when engaging older adults in an emerging living lab

There is a growing body of literature regarding living labs, which are seen as an effective way to develop and evaluate research for novel products and services with the actual end users. With growth in the living labs model, there is an increasing need for guidelines to steer and support the set-up and maintenance of initiatives, and to facilitate relationships and engagement with stakeholders and users in this context. This study seeks to address this need, in part, by exploring the needs, expectations, and motivations that older adults have in relation to research participation in an emerging living lab. This work is part of a wider research project to develop an integrated framework to guide emerging living labs. Eight semi-structured interviews were undertaken with six residents and two family members from two residential settings for older adults that were collaborating to establish a living lab environment. A concept-driven coding frame supported the coding and analysis of the interview transcripts. The results provide insights in relation to participant motivation to take part in research, and they identify some issues of concern for participants, both residents and family members, related to living lab initiatives. As a first step in developing a successful living lab culture of collaborative research, this study has demonstrated that open discussion with residents and their families should continue to guide processes and research design as the emerging living lab initiative continues.