Barriers to using digital health applications mapped with Lego Serious Play

Together with Suzanne Smith, a researcher at NetwellCASALA in Dundalk (Ireland), we organized two workshops using the Lego Serious Play© method for people over 70 to better understand the difficulty and burden of dealing with technology. 

Through the TA program, the VITALISE project is opening up 17 research infrastructures in seven countries to external researchers to conduct their research free of charge. Applicants for transnational access can work on their own projects or on one of the research areas defined in VITALISE, namely rehabilitation, transition from hospital to home and the daily living environment.

NetwellCASALA is a research center and living lab at Dundalk Institute of Technology in Ireland. Suzanne Smith is conducting research on digital health applications and how they can be designed so that older people can also use them easily. What Suzanne, and we too, often hear from an older age group is that they find it "difficult": difficult to use technology and also difficult to ask others to help them do so. We want to do more research on that. To remove the English-Dutch language barrier, We organized two workshops using the Lego Serious Play© method to which we invited a small group of 70+ people each time. Instead of thinking with the head, we encouraged the participants to think with their hands. With surprising and meaningful results. The feeling of having to keep up but also fear of falling out of the boat and missing the digital train is alive and well. Properly understanding what the elderly find burdensome and difficult helps in the development of new technologies. Further proof that innovators must actively engage end users in the development of digital health applications so that they feel comfortable using technology and seek help when needed.