Introduction

Increasingly public services are provided in digital form; their uptake however remains well below expectations. In particular, amongst older adults the need for public services is high while at the same time the uptake of their digital counterparts is low. One of the reasons is that many digital public services (or e-services) do not respond well to the life worlds, use contexts and use practices of its target audiences. An increasingly popular approach to design more user-centric services is co-creation with future users. It has been noted however, that in particular older adults lack the willingness (and often ability) to co-create e-services. Hence, there is an articulated need to engage older citizens in design practice, but a lack of evidence concerning successful participation approaches. This book addresses this gap by providing evidence from three co-creation projects with older adults. In order to understand the challenges and opportunities of co-creation, the book attends to the following three aspects when analysing, evaluating and comparing the three projects: (1) Governing co-creation and sharing control: What are the implications of different modes of governing and managing co-creation? How do (and can) specific methods facilitate the sharing of control? (2) Sharing expertise: How can a variety of stakeholders be engaged in meaningful ways? What are specific challenges and opportunities for sharing (lived) experiences? (3) Enabling change: What types of public services are most suited for co-creation and to what extend do they enable individual and/or social change?