Engaging with end-users of independent living technology in Scotland… the experience of the Blackwood Foundation

We report on the recent activities of the Blackwood Foundation and specifically on a series of engagement workshops with the public. We organised 11 workshops across Scotland, which ran between 24 August and 19 October 2010. We sought to engage with people in order to explore how design and technology may enhance, or inhibit, independent-living. This involved speaking at length to over a 100 people around various aspects of home design and technology. We asked people to share their experiences and provide examples of design that delighted and frustrated them. We also asked them about their opinions about the best and worst technologies in relation to independent living. The discussions sought to explore and identify why certain devices worked well, why others did not, and what alternatives existed. Generally we sought to identify generic design principles which could be used to improve the experience of end-users of independent living technology.