Elderly meeting digitally

Project CoZijn grew out of SeniorDesigner, a co-design project with residents and visitors of Vitalis Berckelhof during Dutch Design Week 2014. One of the issues raised was bullying and the difficulty some residents experienced in connecting with others.

Together with Jan Scheepers, I explored what might lie behind that behaviour. The issue appeared to be broader than bullying alone. Moving into a residential care centre means entering a new community at a vulnerable stage of life. People value their privacy, may hesitate to form new relationships and often share experiences of loss.

Instead of designing a solution from the outside, we explored how residents themselves could help create more connection. We looked at what people might have in common: their backgrounds, families, interests, memories and experiences. This led to CoZijn, a visual social platform through which residents could introduce themselves and share stories with the wider community.

Images and short texts could be turned into a visual story and added to a continuously changing presentation. Together with Bas Kortmann, I designed the freestanding screen furniture on which this content was shown.

Residents, Vitalis staff, project leader Sylvia van Aggel, volunteers and technical partners all contributed to developing the system. A method was created for collecting and refreshing content, while the technical platform enabled it to be shared wirelessly across three Vitalis care locations.

For me, the systemic change lies in that process. CoZijn was not designed for residents, but with the people who were part of the social system. They helped define the challenge, explore possible responses and contribute to implementation.