Involvement of elderly citizens as potential end users of assistive technologies in the living lab Schwechat

This paper describes the efforts of the city of Schwechat in creating a local information society by supporting the Schwechat Living Lab for Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) technologies and services. Local authorities, social service providers, elderly persons, carers, research entities and companies have started to cooperate closely as full partners in this Living Lab in order to invent, discuss, explore, implement, and evaluate innovative technologies to support the independent living of senior citizens. This approach allows focusing on the actual needs of the future users by involving them right from the beginning. The paper gives an overview on the approach of the AAL Living Lab, it describes some projects currently being carried out and discusses the experiences gathered since 2006. The findings in the Living Lab are promising, especially the feedback from the user community is very positive