Technology-Enabled Living Lab for Ageing Better (TELLAB)

Digital care and wellbeing services for older adults have failed to live up to their promise. One reason for this is that these services, and the technologies underpinning them, have been developed and evaluated without the input of those for whom the services are intended: namely, older adults themselves, and their family, friends and carers. 

The TELLAB project will address this shortcoming by providing an appropriate environment for service development and testing: we will establish a “living lab” with residents of independent-living schemes. This will allow new innovations in care and wellbeing to be used and assessed by service users in their own homes over an extended period.

TELLAB is a 3-year collaboration between Johnnie Johnson Housing, Astraline and the Centre for Assistive Technology and Connected Healthcare (CATCH) at the University of Sheffield. It began in June 2022 and is funded by The Dunhill Medical Trust. 

To date, digital care and wellbeing services for older adults have failed to live up to their promise. This project attempts to provide a proper testing ground for the right technologies.

The internet, computers and smartphones have already created new possibilities for work and leisure, and for connecting people and communities. Increasingly, these digital technologies are playing an important role in providing health and care services too. One area where they could make a big difference to our lives is in helping us to live independently and well in our own homes as we get older.

The purpose of the TELLAB project is to guide the creation of useful and appropriate digital health and care services by involving older adults in their development. More specifically, we aim to:

1. Understand the needs and aspirations of older people who are living independently.

2. Develop methods of identifying and assessing new technologies and technology-enabled services that could help to satisfy some of these needs and aspirations.

3. Establish a “living lab” among residents of Johnnie Johnson Housing schemes to evaluate some of these promising technologies and services. A living lab is an environment for product and service development that puts new technologies into real-world situations (in this case, older people’s homes) and allows people to use them over an extended period. When compared to conventional development approaches, a living lab permits a more realistic assessment of the benefits of the technology while also identifying issues that arise when it is put into practice. This feedback is useful for both the developers of the technology and their potential customers, and, ultimately, for the users themselves, who have helped to develop technologies and services that are both valuable and practical.

TELLAB is a collaboration between Johnnie Johnson Housing, Astraline and the Centre for Assistive Technology and Connected Healthcare (CATCH) at the University of Sheffield. It began in June 2022 and is funded by The Dunhill Medical Trust as part of its building and delivering suitable living environments and communities for an ageing population programme.