ABSTRACT
Participatory approaches have great potential for the development of services, particularly those that tackle loneliness, isolation, and vulnerability in later life. The few studies that have been done on the field of phone befriending have not been focused on the content of reciprocal communication. In 2020–2021 the development research has been conducted in Estonia which aim was the development of topics and tasks of regular phone calls in a way that offers a cognitive challenge to the call recipient (CR) and provides satisfaction for the call provider (CP). The formative design methods were implemented in participation research. Two older participants were observed in the two-phased research period. The results of the first participant who was involved in the research for 12 months, turned out to be limited. At the same time, the other older participant produced rich data within three months of development research.
The chapter will describe the case of an older participant performing as a developer while her data is presented in comparison with the respective results of the youngest co-developer in service design. The research helped to highlight the age-related differences of younger and older participants in developing a phone befriending service for older adults.
