Hope to die before you get old? Techno centric versus user-centred approaches in developing virtual services for older people

This ongoing experience of a collaborative project to develop virtual services for older people is outlined. A key feature is an objective of making users more central to the system development process. The idea of appropriation through co-production to enable 'design in use' is proposed. This is presented as an alternative to dominant techno-centric approaches and as potentially more effective than participative design in mitigating its consequences. The experience to date of intervention nurture and facilitating co-production in the project is outlined and discussed. It is suggested that this approach can avoid problems of 'over-integration' - a consequence of many attempts to provide more joined-up public services by virtual means.