‘Smart – not only intelligent!’ Co-creating priorities and design direction for ‘smart’ footwear to support independent ageing.

ABSTRACT

With an ageing population there is a growing need for technology that enables older adults to live independently for longer. The EU Horizon2020 funded MATUROLIFE project is focused on developing solutions that embed smart textiles to support well-being and independence in older adults. The study described here aimed to explore and initiate development of ‘smart’ footwear embedding assistive technology. A qualitative research strategy was employed including interviews with 37 older adults and co-creation activities with 56 older adults. Participants were recruited from eight European countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Turkey, and United Kingdom). The results detail the specific needs that older adults have in relation to footwear based on the daily activities they take part in. Participants shared their footwear fashion preferences, as well as their priorities for assistive functionality. A set-of co-created priorities and concept ideas are presented that consider how footwear might enable independent ageing.

KEYWORDS:

• Assistive technology
• well-being
• fashion design
• wearable electronics
• co-design

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to sincerely thank the participating older adults who gave their time for the interviews and the co-creation activity. Any dissemination reflects the authors’ view only and the European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains. The views and opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and are not intended to represent the position or opinions of the MATUROLIFE consortium or any of the individual partner organisations.

Disclosure statement

No conflict of interest is reported by the authors.

ORCID

Tiziana C. Callari http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9046-1342

Paul Magee http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1259-1026

Danying Yang http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3824-6650

Notes

1 A coding frame is the guiding conceptual scheme to record the codes and criteria used to classify the raw data (e.g. observations, interviews, videos, pictures, etc.) into nodes/categories. Coding frame is the term used when the QCA method is applied, whilst in Thematic Analysis it is referred to as ‘Codebook’.

Additional information

Funding

This publication is based on work performed in MATUROLIFE (Metallisation of Textiles to make Urban Living for Older People more Independent and Fashionable), which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 760789.