Insights from Co-Design of Underwater Telepresence and Extended

Reality Technologies with Digitally Excluded Older Adults

Oksana Hagen

, Marius Varga

, Rory Baxter

, Ray Jones

, Amir Aly

, Dena Bazazian

Swen Gaudl

and Alejandro Veliz Reyes

University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth, U.K.

The University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

Keywords:

Digital Inclusion, Older Adults, Co-Design, Co-Creation, Participatory Design, Intergenerational.

Abstract:

The Intergenerational Co-design of Novel Technologies In Coastal Communities (ICONIC) project is running

co-design workshops with older (50+) and younger people (16-30) to design technologies suitable for older

people’s wellbeing. We aim to design four novel technologies in extended reality (XR), underwater telepres-

ence (UT), social games and voice interaction. This late breaking report focuses on workshop results for the

ﬁrst two technologies. Ten workshops were held (August 23 - February 24) involving 24 older people and

12 younger people. Our co-design methods were demonstrably feasible although recruiting younger people is

difﬁcult. Nevertheless, the thematic and content analysis showed the importance of intergenerational collabo-

ration for the participants, a consistent desire for social interaction aspect in technology design, the existence

of a duality between the desire for immersion and connection to physical reality, as well as special attention to

cost and accessibility. As an outcome of the co-design process, we are developing prototype systems stream-

ing live video from an underwater 360° camera underwater in the sea and XR presence in a historical building.

We discuss some of the crucial considerations of the technology co-design process such as balancing the in-

troduction of existing technology to raise awareness versus idea generation. Insights obtained from ICONIC’s

co-design workshops are relevant to researchers designing information and communication technologies for

older people.

1 INTRODUCTION

Modern technology often neglects older users (Brad-

well et al., 2019; Frennert and

Ostlund, 2014),

despite its potential to improve various aspects of

healthy ageing, such as building connections to the

local environment and community and simply pro-

viding entertainment. Designing technologies that

promote digital equality becomes imperative, par-

ticularly as older individuals face barriers to digital

inclusion, and a growing ageing population. Ad-

dressing these challenges, the Intergenerational Co-

design of Novel Technologies In Coastal Communi-

ties (ICONIC) project employs intergenerational co-

creation for designing technologies such as extended

reality, underwater telepresence, social games, and in-

teractive voice interfaces. This approach recognises

that merely relying on empathy within a design think-

ing paradigm excludes end users from the conver-

sation, and can lead to solutions that overlook their

needs and preferences (Bradwell et al., 2019). By in-

volving both older and younger generations in the de-

sign process, the ICONIC project aims to create tech-

nology that is inclusive, empathetic, and truly respon-

sive to the diverse needs of local communities.

This paper presents a work-in-progress report,

comprising a set of preliminary insights from the un-

derwater telepresence and extended reality co-design

workshops, that demonstrate the feasibility of the ap-

proach and proposes a set of considerations for em-

ploying technology co-design.

2 METHODOLOGY

Our approach mirrors Participatory Inquiry methods,

integrating research and action through iterative de-

velopment. We employ Research through Design

(Andersen and Wakkary, 2019), extending Participa-

tory Inquiry, ensuring stakeholder involvement from

problem-framing to interaction design (Vasconcelos

et al., 2023). The overall steps of the co-design

298

Hagen, O., Varga, M., Baxter, R., Jones, R., Aly, A., Bazazian, D., Gaudl, S. and Reyes, A.

Insights from Co-Design of Underwater Telepresence and Extended Reality Technologies with Digitally Excluded Older Adults.

DOI: 10.5220/0012741900003699

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Ageing Well and e-Health (ICT4AWE 2024), pages 298-303

ISBN: 978-989-758-700-9; ISSN: 2184-4984

Figure 1: Visual description of the co-design process that includes 3 distinct stages: Preliminary stage focused on preparatory

activities - this stage is run before the workshops start, Iterative Co-design workshops focused on hands-on design approaches

and the Wrap-up phase - focused on validation and data dissemination leading to the establishment of at least a social enter-

prise.

process are shown in the Figure 1. The process is

divided into three distinct stages. The ﬁrst stage,

preliminary steps, aims at establishing a connection

with the partners, recruitment of participants, cross-

disciplinary planning, literature and technology re-

view and mock workshop to test co-design method-

ology and logistics. Second stage, co-design work-

shops, is performed as an iterative process exploring

a set of problems and challenges solved by the co-

design team in an iterative manner. The main steps

are: preparation, workshop activity and data collec-

tion, data analysis and knowledge generation and,

ﬁnally, technology/design approach implementation.

The last stage of the overall co-design process, the

wrap-up stage, is used for technology validation and

reﬁning the approach and the technology through co-

design workshops. At this stage, we intend to release

the ﬁndings as academic contributions and we cre-

ate an open-source framework with the potential to be

used by social enterprises to establish a new business

venture with a social aspect.

2.1 Workshop Planning

The co-design workshops were held monthly, to make

sure sufﬁcient time is given for data analysis and tech-

nology development, with each technology undergo-

ing 7 to 10 workshops. The long-term engagement

of the participants ensured consistency in the design

direction throughout. This structure facilitates plan-

ning, development, workshop delivery, and knowl-

edge generation. From the development point of view,

this design is reminiscent of agile methodology, with

iterative product development and evaluation cycles

(Cockton et al., 2016).

2.2 Recruitment

We collaborated with 35 local organizations to re-

cruit older (50+) and younger individuals (16-30).

Ethical clearance was obtained from University of

Plymouth Arts, Humanities, and Business Research

Ethics and Integrity Committee (09/05/23; project ID

3941). Recruitment was primarily driven by part-

ner organizations sharing project adverts with poten-

tial participants. Participants receive vouchers as re-

imbursement, with additional vouchers available to

cover transport costs. Prior to joining workshops,

participants were interviewed to identify their pre-

workshop levels of digital engagement, revealing var-

ied levels of digital exclusion, with common barriers

being skills, cost, and infrastructure limitations asso-

ciated with coastal and rural regions (Van Dijk, 2020;

Helsper, 2021; Network, 2003).

2.3 Data Collection and Analysis

Data was collected during workshops in form of voice

recordings, videos, feedback forms, questionnaires,

facilitator notes, as well as hard copy materials from

prototyping activities. The data was then analysed us-

ing a mixture of thematic coding and content analy-

sis to extract user preferences and priorities, akin to

”user stories” to facilitate the development of the pro-

totypes. The identity of the participants was protected

by anonymisation throughout the process.

3 TECHNOLOGY CO-DESIGN

OUTCOMES

Despite the common core idea of increasing digital

inclusion and well being, the two technologies we are

Insights from Co-Design of Underwater Telepresence and Extended Reality Technologies with Digitally Excluded Older Adults

299

developing are engaging with different themes: UT

aims to create a deeper connection with the natural

environment, while XR is aiming to build immersive

interactions with local heritage. The design process

for each technology has produced speciﬁc insights;

however, we have also uncovered certain themes that

span across both technologies.

3.1 Underwater Telepresence

Informed by the positive impact of blue spaces on

wellbeing (Grellier et al., 2017) and the project fo-

cus on coastal communities, our aim is to recreate an

underwater experience for people while they are on-

shore, offering them the opportunity to explore oth-

erwise inaccessible marine environments. The gen-

eral theme of the workshops was to build an optimal

interaction with the marine space that could lead to

the ”feeling of being underwater”, while also meeting

some of the practical challenges of such a design.

Initial co-design workshops highlighted various

barriers to engaging with the underwater world, in-

cluding ﬁnancial constraints, time limitations, physi-

cal limitations, and discomfort in cold water. While

the team was considering to build a remotely oper-

ated vehicle for the experience, a scoping review led

us to explore alternative technological approaches to

underwater telepresence, each with its own considera-

tions regarding accessibility, interactivity, installation

complexity, and maintenance requirements.

3.1.1 Co-Design Process

From September 2023 to February 2024, in collabora-

tion with the National Marine Aquarium (Plymouth,

UK), we conducted ﬁve workshops involving 12 older

and 6 younger people - the ﬁrst set of workshops

planned for UT development within ICONIC.

Through focus groups, problem-framing exer-

cises, design thinking workshops, physical prototyp-

ing, and demonstrations of related technology (such

as, simulated underwater experience using a VR

headset ”Ocean Rift”, a number of 360° underwater

videos, demonstration of large language models), a

consensus emerged for an immersive, real-time expe-

rience of the local underwater environment with inter-

active access to information about marine life. These

preferences informed the development of a concep-

tual prototype featuring live video streaming from a

stationary 360° camera, complemented by a back-end

marine life classiﬁcation engine and a user-friendly

interface accessible via a head-mounted display and

interactive controllers.

For the second set of the sessions (starting in June,

2024), we are planning to bring the underwater telep-

resence experience outdoors, to ﬁnd out how the ﬁnd-

ings obtained from the aquarium interactions can be

adapted to a wider context.

3.1.2 Design Insights

Throughout the workshops, we found that the partic-

ipants were equally drawn to two opposite modes of

interaction: stimulation and relaxation. The stimu-

lating mode was characterised by dynamic and en-

gaging experiences through gamiﬁcation and interac-

tive features, such as engaging with educational in-

formation about marine life. By contrast, the relaxing

mode aimed to provide a tranquil and soothing envi-

ronment, to focus on the wellbeing beneﬁts associated

with blue spaces (Grellier et al., 2017).

Learning about marine fauna and ﬂora was a big

and consistent focus in all the workshops. We have

addressed this need by integrating elements of ma-

chine learning and interfacing the prototype with a

remote large language model API for generations of

explanations about marine life.

The role of live streaming as an element of build-

ing a long-term engagement was suggested in the

workshops through the interaction with the publicly

available live underwater camera stream. The partic-

ipants highlighted that the content must be different

and varied to be engaging long-term, also mention-

ing the special allure of ”observing it, as it happens”.

This long-term engagement contrasts the short-term

interactions usually designed for such applications.

3.2 Extended Reality

Enabling individuals with mobility impairments to

access culturally and historically signiﬁcant sites,

our project addresses the limitations of commercially

available VR systems while fostering connections

with speciﬁc places and communities, and support-

ing user wellbeing (Alliance, 2020; Pennington and

Corcoran, 2019; Ateca-Amestoy et al., 2021). Build-

ing upon prior efforts in the ﬁeld of XR system de-

velopment for digital heritage sites, which focused on

comparable sites including Powderham Castle and the

Higher Uppacott medieval site in Dartmoor National

Park (Reyes et al., 2023), our focus is Cotehele, man-

aged by the National Trust, a group of medieval build-

ings and historic gardens in Cornwall with strong con-

nections to the local community. Despite local efforts

to enhance accessibility, the site presents challenges

such as narrow corridors, steep steps, and limited pub-

lic transport.

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3.2.1 Co-Design Process

From August to December 2023, we conducted ﬁve

workshops involving 12 older and 6 younger people.

Utilising the Meta Quest 2 headset, participants expe-

rienced immersive VR encounters, engaging in vari-

ous activities to document, experience, and speculate

on historical sites and their potential to promote well-

being principles such as social cohesion and intergen-

erational interactions. These activities encompassed

360° video demonstrations, persona-based experience

design sessions, and ergonomic testing of XR hard-

ware for older users, resulting in tailored control and

handling functionalities for the Quest 2 headset. Ad-

ditionally, we collaborated with the Cotehele team to

3D scan and document artefacts that will be imple-

mented at a later date in the project as part of a local

narrative. XR workshop activities will resume in June

2024, focusing on integrating locomotion and interac-

tion design elements, as well as incorporating narra-

tive and storytelling strategies into the ﬁnal XR expe-

rience co-design.

Figure 2: Screenshot from an early digital version of Cote-

hele, Inside the Great Hall. The participants explored the

interaction and the environment to get a sense of space and

explore various types of locomotion suitable for that space.

3.2.2 Design Insights

An XR experience implies metaphorically transport-

ing the user to a digitally constructed reality, away

from where the user currently resides. Typically that

requires going beyond the sense of depth provided

by a stereoscopic view of a head-mounted display.

The more the user’s sensory stimulation is triggered

with inputs from the digital environment the more im-

mersed they become, leading to a sense of place illu-

sion or presence (Slater, 2018).

This aspect was very clear from the ﬁrst VR ex-

perience the intergenerational group of co-designers

took part in. The session focused on exploring the

sense of scale and space from a participant’s egocen-

tric point of view using 360° videos captured at vari-

ous locations inside the Cotehele Heritage site (Figure

2). The dominant feedback feature was a lack of inter-

action and frustration with the inability to move inside

the virtual space. Users’ senses were triggered solely

by the visual stimulus while the rest of the senses

were rooted in reality therefore breaking the illusion.

Upon the introduction of interactivity and naviga-

tion, the immersion levels increased but two main bar-

riers arose. The lack of familiarity with the VR con-

trollers led some participants to lean towards more

intuitive modes of interaction such as hand tracking

which comes at the cost of losing haptic feedback.

The second stumbling block is more physical in na-

ture, presented by limited thumb dexterity or inability

to close the hand around the controller displayed by

some of the older participants. This presented a chal-

lenge with even simple tasks such as squeezing the

side button on the controllers or moving the thumb-

stick at the top of the controller.

As a result, for the remaining sessions for XR, we

are planning to introduce a series of workshops that

focus on the co-design and integration of a custom

controller (unique mapping of a controller or perhaps

a specially built controller) that satisﬁes the range of

mobility presented by the participants and maintain

the immersive element of the experience.

3.3 Cross-Track Themes

Through both technology tracks, the intergenerational

aspect was evident from the behaviour of the par-

ticipants in the workshops and in their self-reported

experience. Participants highlighted the importance

of diverse perspectives for ensuring the inclusivity of

the technology design process. The intergenerational

dynamics were particularly evident in the hands-on

activities such as physical prototyping, where the

younger participants took initiative in making the pro-

totype, while the older adults provided guidance dur-

ing the process.

The participants in both workshop tracks were

mindful of the cost considerations and accessibility

of the ﬁnal design. For example, in XR workshops,

as the creation of an additional haptic sensor was dis-

cussed, participants expressed a worry that it will in-

crease the overall cost of the design.

While in both technologies, the allure of the im-

mersive spaces was evident from the participants’

feedback, there is a consistent conﬂict between the

desire to be immersed in the virtual space and the dis-

comfort of feeling disconnected from the real world.

This was addressed in UT track by giving a chance

Insights from Co-Design of Underwater Telepresence and Extended Reality Technologies with Digitally Excluded Older Adults

301

to participants to interact with the 360° immersive

portable dome (Figure 3) for comparison with the use

of a headset.

Similarly, participants in both tracks consistently

expressed a desire for a social interaction aspect in

the technology design. To further address this pref-

erence, in the second part of the project, a dedicated

workshop will focus on the development of a social

interaction metaphor for the participants. For the XR

track, through a co-design approach, the participants

will use technology such as Quest Pro (Meta, 2024),

that facilitates social interaction. The head mounted

display social features, such as eye tracking and fa-

cial expression recognition, will provide the partici-

pants with the tools to create a social experience and

increase collaboration in the virtual world. In the UT

track, we will further engage with participants’ ini-

tial suggestions by implementing a social interaction

aspect through a gamiﬁed activity focused on recog-

nizing marine species.

Figure 3: The participants of the UT workshop evaluate the

interaction experience with underwater footage via a semi-

portable immersive dome by Fulldome.pro.

4 CO-DESIGN PROCESS

CONSIDERATIONS

In the overall co-design of technology we have en-

countered a number of trade-offs that require careful

balancing for a successful co-design process.

4.1 Building Technology Awareness

It is important to build awareness of the possibili-

ties of technology among our participants to empower

them to generate ideas in a grounded way. In gen-

eral, with every workshop, the participants gained

more knowledge and conﬁdence, which enabled them

to focus more deeply on co-creation with subsequent

workshops requiring fewer technical explanations and

details.

The balance between the educational aspect of the

workshops and co-creation was important. For ex-

ample, participants needed to be comfortable in using

VR head mounted displays to be able to indicate their

preferred elements of interaction. As many people in

our workshops had never engaged with the VR head-

sets, we set up additional one-on-one VR training ses-

sions.

There is a certain risk, however, of imposing spe-

ciﬁc technological solutions early on that might limit

exploration and creativity. Being mindful of this ef-

fect, in UT track, the very ﬁrst session was solely ded-

icated to the participants’ prior interactions with the

marine environment and National Marine Aquarium

tour, without any technology engagement.

4.2 Balancing the Practical Limitations

While it is best for the co-design process if partici-

pants bring forth imaginative ideas during the ideation

stage of the development, practical constraints in-

evitably surface in the design process. In our case,

the main constraint is development time, as only one

researcher was developing each of the technologies.

We found that participants were receptive to the con-

versation about the limitations of the project, and the

outlined scope of the initial prototype development,

while still staying creative and imaginative.

Moreover, in many cases, it is possible to identify

the deeper motivation behind suggested features and

consider the possibilities of alternative implementa-

tions. For instance, during one of the UT workshops

participants came up with an idea of social interaction

in marine space via avatars. While we are unable to

implement this directly, it signals a desire for a social

interaction aspect of the design.

4.3 Representation and Recruitment

Representation of our target population of older dig-

itally excluded people is limited as our sample is to

some extent self-selected, where participants volun-

teer to take part in the workshops. While this ap-

proach offers insights from the individuals actively

engaged and interested in the project, it may not fully

capture the perspectives of those less inclined to par-

ticipate. We are planning to address this limitation

by holding additional sessions to evaluate whether the

design was truly representative of the preferences of a

wider audience.

Despite targeted outreach efforts, we have en-

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302

countered difﬁculties in engaging certain demograph-

ics, particularly younger individuals with limited

availability due to work or education commitments.

We are addressing this by further contacting more

local educational organizations and holding separate

sessions for younger individuals so trialing an asyn-

chronous intergenerational co-design.

5 CONCLUSION

Co-design holds signiﬁcant promise for technology

development. By addressing key limitations and

trade-offs in the co-design process, such as ensur-

ing participants understand the potential and practi-

cal constraints of technological solutions, we can ef-

fectively engage the general public, particularly older

adults, in creating digital technologies.

Within ICONIC, we plan to conduct four addi-

tional co-design ’sprints’, each spanning six months

and focusing on one of the four technologies (Under-

water Telepresence, Extended Reality, Voice AI Inter-

face, and Social Games). These sprints will be com-

plemented by one-off sessions for evaluation and ad-

ditional feedback, as well as dedicated workshops for

younger participants.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This paper is presented on behalf of the Intergener-

ational Co-design of Novel Technologies In Coastal

Communities (ICONIC) project. The ICONIC

project was awarded funding (March 2022) from

UKRI/EPSRC grant reference EP/W024357/1. The

researchers comprised (i) a core team of Ray Jones,

Amir Aly, Alejandro Veliz Reyes, Dena Bazazian,

Swen Gaudl (University of Gothenburg), (ii) Re-

search Fellows Rory Baxter, Oksana Hagen, Mar-

ius Varga (iii) Chunxu Li (Ho Hai University),

Katharine Willis, Daniel Maudlin, Sheena Asthana,

Kerry Howell, Emmanuel Ifeachor, Shangming Zhou,

Arunangsu Chatterjee (Leeds University), Hannah

Bradwell. All listed are University of Plymouth ex-

cept some who have since moved (new afﬁliations

shown). The academic team worked closely with

many partner organisations as listed on the ICONIC

website. We thank our partners and participants.

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