Shaping connections: co-designing digital inclusion for older adults

The ability to engage with information and communication technologies (ICT) is crucial in today’s digitally connected world. Functioning as a digital consumer demands skills and knowledge to use search engines, navigate online banking and shopping/selling sites, make appointments/bookings and connect via social media. While younger people are familiar with technology consumption (Prensky, 2001) older adults are less so, potentially reducing their quality of life, independence, autonomy and mental health (Seifert et al., 2020).

Older adults often rely on younger family members for technological support, however research shows that non-familial sources of learning, such as peer groups, community mentors and structured programs, are equally important in fostering digital agency (Quan-Haase et al., 2018). Existing digital inclusion programs emphasise technical skills but do not explicitly address seniors’ perceptions of risk, which often persist even when basic competencies improve.

This problem was identified by RMIT University researchers and members of the University of the Third Age (U3A) Network Victoria. U3A is an international educational affinity organisation led by older adults that provides a range of volunteer-led courses and programs for contemporaries.

A collaboration emerged between RMIT researchers and Glen Wall of U3A, who was also active in the City of Whittlesea’s Positive Ageing Network (CoW). While both U3A and CoW had long offered “tech help” classes, participation remained uneven as many older adults disengaged after initial sessions. The partners observed that existing programs did not address the deeper perceptions of risk that limited ongoing engagement. Many older adults are fearful of scams, data breaches or making irreversible mistakes, discouraging engagement despite recognising technology’s growing necessity. These concerns shaped the project’s aim to co-design strategies with older adults, linking their lived experiences of ICT with practical risk-management approaches to lower perceived barriers and strengthen participation in the digital economy and online services. We explored members’ key issues with technology in three focus groups, which subsequently led to the project.

During the COVID-19 pandemic U3A members were experiencing increased anxiety, confusion and dependency when trying to navigate technology to access online services as the city of Melbourne, Australia, of which Whittlesea is a suburb, imposed severe isolation rules. A growing number of organisations needed to focus on improving older adults’ digital literacy to enable general wellbeing (Figueiredo et al., 2023a). ICT training that improves older adults’ digital engagement in ways that matter to their daily lives, such as being able to enjoy a video call with a grandchild, book a medical appointment online or participate in a Zoom-based U3A class also needed to mitigate seniors’ fears.

What emerged was the Shaping Connections project ^[1]. This project developed from real-world needs and ground-level engagement with older adults and their supporting organisations. The output of the project was a co-designed program of improved ICT education, providing the outcome of a better way for older adults to gain new skills which had the impact of improved societal wellbeing while also accounting for perceived risks.

Project collaborators included RMIT, U3A, CoW and the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) Each represented a distinct but complementary perspective: academic, community, local government and advocacy, and their combined efforts were essential to achieving meaningful and sustainable outcomes in seniors’ digital inclusion. U3A’s volunteer-led peer learning model made it an ideal partner for developing and testing co-designed approaches, in concert with CoW’s senior community while ACCAN’s national remit in digital consumer rights ensured policy reach and legitimacy.

U3A has over 100,000 members in 250 branches throughout Australia. U3A provided funding and leadership in the grant planning process, which facilitated a shared understanding of goals and language and helped align various aims and efforts across educational, social, health and technological impact outcomes. U3A leaders’ deep understanding of the membership was critical to participant recruitment. U3A leaders and peer mentors were involved in the research process: leading participant informational meetings, development and beta testing of the interview guide, co-design of workshop engagement materials, co-design of online assessment tools and preparation of deliverables.

The City of Whittlesea’s strategic interest in providing opportunities and choices that support outputs and impacts which benefit older adults aligned with RMIT’s and U3A’s goals. CoW provided funding and support with staff serving as collaborators and facilitators. As part of their Positive Ageing strategy, CoW provided access to culturally and linguistically diverse groups (CALD) participants for interviews, surveys and workshops. CALD refers to people living in Australia who were born overseas or have parent(s) or grandparent(s) born overseas and are predominately from non-English speaking or non-Western countries.

ACCAN is funded by The Commonwealth of Australia and facilitates the promotion of ICT resources for consumers. Their social impact is evident in their efforts toward greater available, accessible and affordable communication. Given the need for ICT education among seniors (Seifert et al., 2020), this project fell within ACCAN’s remit and funding parameters. The needs of WoC’s CALD population also align with ACCAN’s efforts toward greater available, accessible and affordable communication. ACCAN’s financial support funded data collection and analysis, workshops and online assessment tool development. ACCAN provided guidelines for accessibility (particularly sight and hearing) considerations for the development of all public materials including online assessment tools and project reports.

Collaborators agreed that a co-design approach was needed to connect seniors lived experiences with digital practices, surface seniors’ specific fears and enabled them to generate strategies for managing risk. Academic interest in how co-designed projects can improve inclusion and outcome impacts combined with an emerging academic literature reinforcing the need of ICT competency among older adults (Seifert et al., 2020) and the possibilities of peer-directed learning (Quan-Haase et al., 2018) fuelled this co-designed project. While the project did not aim for full co-creation of value outcomes, it adopted a co-design approach in which older adults and partner organisations directly shaped problem definitions, tools and program adaptations.

Collaboration across the partners was not without tensions. Early in the partnership, the CoW expressed uncertainty about co-funding expectations, citing budgetary constraints and competing priorities. We reframed CoW’s contribution as in-kind support, use of venues, staff participation and access to community groups, allowing full engagement without financial pressure.

Tensions arose during the grant application stage with ACCAN, whose output expectation was for a conventional, skills-based digital literacy program. Through discussion and proposal refinement, we demonstrated the value of a co-design approach. These exchanges helped ACCAN expand its own understanding of digital inclusion to encompass perceptions of risk and confidence building.

U3A mentors initially prioritised teaching technical skills, whereas researchers emphasised understanding the emotional and social dimensions of ICT anxiety. This pedagogical tension was resolved through iterative workshops that led to a hybrid peer-learning model combining confidence-building with practical instruction, an approach now embedded in several U3A programs.

WoC CALD participants challenged the use of generic senior personas, noting that they failed to capture different migration histories, language barriers and intergenerational support dynamics common within CALD communities. In response, we developed a new set of CALD-specific personas. These adapted personas allowed participants to recognise their own experiences in the materials and to articulate culturally grounded strategies for managing digital risk. Engagement and relevance increased significantly once these personas were introduced.

Commercial companies declined to collaborate. Discussions with telecom provider NBN uncovered tensions between ethnographic depth and market-scale data expectations. Translating findings into segmentation personas and risk typologies that could inform industry communication strategies, bridged academic and commercial needs. NBN joined the project once the online assessment tools were made publicly available.

Stakeholder relationships were sustained through continuous dialogue, co-branded outputs and shared dissemination events. Regular updates, transparent decision-making and visible milestones reinforced trust. Co-authorship of reports and the joint development and ownership of the Shaping Connections website, co-owned by RMIT and U3A through Creative Commons license, provided a tangible sense of shared ownership and legacy.

The co-design process was structured as a series of collaborative engagements through which stakeholders articulated concerns, aligned understandings and adapted project activities over time (see Table 1). Rather than treating interviews, surveys and workshops as instruments for data collection only, these activities functioned as co-creation tools that enabled collaborators to shape the direction, content and implementation of the project.

The overarching purpose of the project was to identify and mitigate older adults’ perceptions of ICT-related risks grounded in lived experience and organisational practice. A full technical account of research procedures and analyses is reported elsewhere (see Figueiredo et al., 2022). The focus here is on how the co-design process unfolded in practice and how each stage contributed to collaboration, adaptation and impact generation.

The project emerged through sustained engagement between researchers at RMIT and leaders from U3A with CoW and ACCAN joining as partners. Early engagement centred on establishing shared priorities and clarifying the scope of collaboration. These discussions revealed a common concern that existing ICT programs focused primarily on technical skill acquisition, while emotional, cultural and trust-related barriers to digital engagement remained insufficiently addressed.

Our alignment shaped the decision to adopt a staged co-design process that allowed seniors and organisational partners to articulate concerns progressively and to revise project activities as understanding developed. Collaboration centred on relationship-building and the development of shared expectations regarding roles, responsibilities and intended outcomes.

Interviews with older adults functioned as an initial co-creation device, providing a space for participants to articulate perceived risks, anxieties and coping strategies associated with ICT use in their own language. Participants described concerns related to scams, password management, loss of control, embarrassment and fear of making irreversible mistakes. These conversations articulated both practical barriers and emotional and social dimensions shaping digital engagement.

Interview data were shared with U3A, prompting reflection on existing teaching practices and revealing misalignments between technical instruction and participants lived experiences. One U3A leader observed that these accounts revealed areas where existing programs could be adapted, which informed subsequent project decisions.

Insights from the interviews shaped how the notion of risk and confidence in use were conceptualised across the project and informed the design of subsequent activities. The interviews also supported the development of shared language across stakeholders, enabling later stages of co-design to proceed with clearer alignment.

Building on the concerns articulated during interviews, the survey was co-developed with U3A leaders and ACCAN representatives as a tool for aligning stakeholder understanding of digital risk. Rather than functioning primarily as a measurement instrument, the survey translated participants’ articulated experiences into a shared framework that stakeholders could work with in planning and decision-making.

Survey outputs were used to support discussions among mentors, council staff and advocacy partners regarding priorities for intervention. These discussions supported a shift away from deficit-oriented interpretations of older adults’ digital engagement toward a focus on the conditions that enable or disable confidence, trust and perceived risks.

As the project progressed, the articulation of risk categories evolved. Differences between earlier and later categorizations reflected refinement through engagement rather than inconsistency. Stakeholders used these distinctions to clarify which risks mattered most in specific contexts and how they could be addressed through program design. This shared framework informed the focus and structure of the co-design workshops.

The risk categories identified in Stage one and Stage two reflect different phases of the co-design process rather than competing typologies. In Stage one, five broad risk categories emerged inductively from the online interviews and were used as exploratory, participant-led groupings to surface older adults lived experiences. As the project progressed into Stage two, these preliminary categories were reviewed collaboratively with U3A leaders and participants. Scale items were generated to reflect the different aspects of risk perceptions identified in the interviews, followed by stakeholder review, survey pre-testing with U3A members and alignment with existing ICT risk and consumer behaviour literature. Exploratory factor analysis of survey data revealed six distinct categories (see Aleti et al., 2025). The evolution from five to six categories reflects increasing conceptual specificity through co-creation rather than the introduction of new risks.

Co-design workshops brought the collaborators and older adults together to articulate priorities and develop strategies for managing perceived digital risks. Participants took an active role in shaping project outputs providing direct involvement in design decisions.

Researchers and U3A mentors facilitated discussions and documented contributions to ensure accessibility and inclusion, particularly for CALD participants. Activities included persona development, scenario mapping and the articulation of strategies for responding to different types of digital risk across varying levels of confidence and access to support.

These workshops reinforced the importance of addressing emotional and behavioural barriers alongside technical instruction. Participants articulated diverse digital trajectories and learning needs, which informed the development of co-designed tools such as the digital confidence self-assessment tool ^[2] and risk-perception personas. CALD-specific personas were developed in response to participants’ feedback, allowing cultural experiences and support dynamics to be reflected more accurately in project materials.

Stage four focused on dissemination and implementation as an extension of the co-design process. This stage included two dissemination workshops, one online and one in person, designed to share insights developed in earlier stages, incorporate co-designed outputs into practical strategies and gain feedback for resource refinement.

Participants who had been involved in previous stages contributed directly to final revisions of project tools. Feedback centred on usability, conceptual clarity and relevance to participants’ everyday needs, allowing resources to be refined through continued engagement rather than finalised in isolation.

Stage four also included two implementation workshops with U3A tutors and mentors, which involved extensive discussion about how the resources could support classes and assist teachers in responding to diverse learner needs. These sessions focused on practical engagement with the digital confidence self-assessment tool, enabling older adults to identify their level of ICT confidence and to articulate the types of support and learning resources most relevant to them. Tutors and mentors used these discussions to address how the tool could be integrated into existing classes and adapted to local contexts.

Outputs from this stage included co-design workshops and training sessions, through which more than 200 older adults and mentors engaged in iterative testing and refinement of project resources (see Table 2). This process also supported the development of the shaping connections website, which provided an accessible platform for hosting tools, learning materials and project insights. The continued use and adaptation of these resources supported the strengthening of collaborative partnerships with ACCAN and the CoW, embedding the outcomes of the project within existing organisational and community infrastructures.

Our collaboration provided insights into the limitations of co-design methods and the importance of adapting practices to suit the needs of the stakeholders. We adapted the scenario personarrative method (Vallet et al., 2020) to elicited older adults’ technological experiences and provided a more nuanced understanding of the risk mitigation strategies used (see Sheahan et al., 2023). We also addressed the need to more fully include vulnerable people, developing EMPOWER, an acronym for the extending, multiplying, publicizing, outsourcing, widening, enabling and reflecting processes for co-design research (see Figueiredo et al., 2023b).

Based on the co-design process, we offer three practical suggestions for future community-led digital inclusion initiatives. Firstly, flexible timelines are critical, as participants’ confidence, availability and learning rhythm often change or vary. In this project, workshop schedules and content were adjustable, with built-in breaks and a mix of formal and informal interactions, in response to participants’ fatigue, language needs and confidence levels, particularly among CALD groups.

Secondly, open feedback loops are structured, ongoing channels through which participants and partners can influence project direction beyond initial consultation. In practice, this included post-workshop debriefs with U3A leaders, informal chats with workshop participants between sessions, iterative revisions of personas and learning materials based on participant feedback and dissemination workshops where earlier outputs were explicitly revisited and modified. These feedback loops ensured that design decisions for outputs and tools remained responsive and purposely co-designed rather than fixed.

Thirdly, participatory evaluation can be implemented through reflective discussions about the problems faced by fictional personas, rather than relying on participants discussing their personal fears. Observations of reduced anxiety, increased openness to trying new things with technology and some participants’ transition into informal peer mentor roles were considered meaningful indicators of success. These practices advance ethical, adaptive and sustainable digital inclusion by embedding learning and responsibility in existing community infrastructures.

We measured outcomes in multiple ways. Following the co-design workshop, we administered a short survey asking participants about their participation, confidence, key benefits and difficulties. Post-presentation feedback was collected following talks and workshops to organisations, councils and U3A groups. U3A leaders reported on emerging outcomes throughout the stages.

The project outcomes include educational opportunities which empowered older adults with low digital confidence, including those from CALD backgrounds, through tailored, peer-led support that increased ICT confidence, reduced anxiety and fostered digital autonomy. This emphasis on anxiety reduction and confidence building aligns with the broader program evidence showing that ICT anxiety is shaped by perceived risks, attitudes and available resources and that strengthening competencies and reducing perceived risk are central pathways for lowering anxiety in older adults (Reid et al., 2024). This was particularly important for individuals who previously lacked the knowledge or confidence to articulate the kind of help they required, making learning more responsive and empowering. By reframing digital inclusion from a technical skills issue to one centred on confidence and perceptions of risk, the project increased participants’ willingness and ability to engage with essential online tasks such as creating passwords, managing accounts, recognising scams and booking appointments, consistent with evidence that perceived ICT risks are a key driver of anxiety and that competencies reduce perceived risk and support sustained engagement (Reid et al., 2024).

Social outcomes are evident in the stakeholder collaboration, emerging peer mentoring and open-access learning tools that could be adapted and reused across regions. The project presented its central themes to 104 local U3A groups, inspiring some participants to transition from passive learners to active co-designers and, eventually, community mentors. This ecosystem approach is consistent with evidence that older adults’ ICT anxiety and willingness to engage are shaped not only by individual competence but also by social environments that can either increase pressure and anxiety or enable confidence through supportive structures and resources (Reid et al., 2024). Capacity building was achieved through the creation of a newly established network of older peer mentors and the piloting of the U3A-led Tech Corner community of practice ^[3]. U3A mentors adopted hybrid peer-learning models that blend skill-building with confidence-building approaches and shared resources that strengthen local organisations’ capacity to provide ongoing digital inclusion support. The reuse of open-access resources developed during the project led to two local councils piloting similar peer-led initiatives in collaboration with community groups and advocacy bodies. Two collaborators adopted the program to improve their offerings: ACCAN expanded its policy framing to include confidence and perceived risk and the City of Whittlesea trialled integrating digital support into ageing programs. These outcomes align with evidence that reducing ICT anxiety depends on the availability of supportive social structures and shared resources within the local area, rather than simply increasing individuals’ exposure to ICT (Reid et al., 2024).

One responsibility of the project was measuring the program’s impacts. We interviewed 25 community connectors, focusing on concrete activities, specific metrics and causal links. We collected artefacts such as media articles, training materials, leaflets. A key instrument used to establish interdependencies during this process was the development of a timeline outlining key events and dates. Initial informants helped map these events, while subsequent informants, especially those involved in specific events, provided further detail and clarified the causal links between them ^[4].

Educational impacts are evident in participants’ increased ICT competence and everyday digital participation, including the self-management of essential online tasks related to banking, health and government services. Showcasing project resources on the website enabled potential end-users to see how the tools could be used in practice and to provide feedback on usability improvements ^[5]. The program was particularly effective for older adults with limited English proficiency. As CALD participant Luigi explained, “Sometimes I have problems, for example, with my mobile phone, and they (mentors) show me how to do it. My English, I have some problems […] the problem is spelling […] Now, I got everything.” Luigi had minimal digital experience prior to joining U3A, but classes adapted to the specific needs of mentees proved effective in supporting participants from CALD backgrounds. Across the program, participants reported increased confidence and self-efficacy when using ICT. At the same time, peer mentors observed reduced anxiety and a stronger sense of agency among learners, consistent with the project’s focus on reducing perceived risks to enhance educational impacts.

Social impacts included the creation of self-sustaining peer networks that continue to deliver digital learning activities beyond the project’s funding period. The U3A-led Tech Corner community of practice, which applied co-design principles developed through the project to peer-to-peer learning, continues to prosper and now includes more than 200 mentors across 45 U3A groups. The successful pilot programs spread to other nearby council areas. Members of these communities continue to meet regularly, share resources and support one another in responding to evolving digital challenges, strengthening local organisations’ capacity to provide ongoing digital inclusion support.

At an organisational level, U3A reported that the co-design process reshaped internal practices by increasing awareness of how perceived risks influence older adults’ engagement with online services. Peer-led digital mentoring was embedded within U3A programs and local government Positive Ageing initiatives. These changes reinforced a central project insight: addressing trust and perceptions of risk can unlock sustained digital participation and broader social inclusion. Embedding peer-led digital mentoring within U3A and local government programs also generated scalable resources hosted on the Shaping Connections website, which continue to be used by U3A, the City of Whittlesea and other community organisations, linking community-based learning with long-term system-level impact.

While the project did not directly measure downstream health outcomes, it strengthened capabilities and support structures known to enable older adults to access digital health information and services, maintain social connections and participate more confidently in online life and local communities ^[6]. These pathways are evidenced through participants improved digital competence, reduced anxiety and increased confidence in using ICT to stay connected, access services and manage everyday tasks. Anxiety and fear of making mistakes with digital devices were key barriers identified early in the project. With supportive mentorship, participant Rhonda described a shift in confidence, noting, “I’m not frightened to touch some buttons now, whereas I was frightened before.” Participants consistently emphasised emotional readiness, confidence and feeling safe online as critical markers of success, highlighting the social value of reassurance and inclusion alongside technical capability.

Shaping connections collaborators participated in a roundtable discussion with the commissioner for senior Victorians, creating a direct pathway for influencing policy and practice and contributing to Australia’s broader digital inclusion and healthy ageing agenda. The commissioner recognised the role of “Social Connectors” as a central opportunity to advance peer-to-peer learning and ICT engagement among older adults, broadening national understandings of digital inclusion to incorporate trust, culture and confidence. Policy and organisational influence were further evidenced through collaborators’ participation in national digital inclusion discussions. The broadband provider NBN revised its approach to communicating with older adults after engaging with project collaborators, leading to the launch of the “Live Life Digitally Connected” initiative in partnership with U3A. Program delivery continues to adapt through Zoom-based support, in-person tech cafés and locally tailored drop-in hubs.

The project also influenced public discourse through sustained media engagement. Interviews with local and national radio and newspaper outlets began during the lockdown period. They continued as the project progressed, contributing to public debate on the social and health impacts of loneliness and isolation and on the role of ICT in supporting older adults’ inclusion. Research insights were shared through reports, video vignettes, articles and media appearances, all of which were made publicly available online ^[7]. Project findings were workshopped with beneficiaries in the technology and education sectors, including executives from a major telecommunications provider and an aged care organisation and shared at a panel event organised by the Australian Government Council on the Ageing (see Table 3).

The project reinforced mechanisms that sustained and extended digital inclusion practices beyond the research timeline. The transformation of mentees into mentors extended the project’s reach beyond its funded period and reduced reliance on ongoing project coordination. U3A chapters continued to run Tech Corner sessions, evidencing sustained local ownership and the routinisation of peer-led digital support. These self-sustaining peer networks continued to deliver digital learning activities, embedding peer mentoring within existing community infrastructures. Peer relationships established during the project persisted through ongoing mentoring groups, reinforcing participation and local engagement around digital inclusion. While these reinforcing mechanisms do not constitute direct health or social impacts, they supported continued access to digital services and social connection by maintaining confidence and reducing anxiety around ICT use, thereby strengthening the durability of the project’s longer-term impacts.

Impact not as a neutral outcome but as a negotiated and shared responsibility among researchers, participants and partner organisations. Meaningful impact was defined collaboratively through discussions between RMIT, U3A, CoW and ACCAN. For community partners, impact meant practical change: older adults feeling safer and more confident using technology. For researchers, it meant generating engagement and trying to evidence how perceptions of risk shape digital inclusion practices and publishing our insights. For ACCAN, it involved producing open-access tools that could inform national advocacy. Recognizing these differing interpretations, the team adopted a plural definition of impact that honoured multiple forms of value creation.

Ownership of impact and resources was equally shared. All co-designed tools, including the digital confidence self-assessment tool and the risk-perception personas, were released under a creative commons license, ensuring accessibility and collective stewardship. The shaping connections website was co-owned by RMIT and U3A to embed outputs in existing community infrastructures. This model was intended to prevent extractive research dynamics by keeping resources with those who generated them.

Ethical responsiveness to community needs and values is central to this co-design project. For example, to ensure participants dignity and comfort, collaborators-initiated phone calls prior and an explanatory online meeting prior to the actual interview. Efforts to carefully address needs of possibly vulnerable participants is also evident in the responsiveness by key collaborators to CALD participants desires for extended participation timelines.

Several ethical challenges emerged during implementation. The inclusion of CALD participants required careful consideration of linguistic and cultural representation. Early feedback revealed that generic senior personas did not reflect diverse migration histories and family dynamics. Thus, the team co-developed CALD-specific personas in participants’ own words, ensuring agency and authenticity in representation. Another challenge concerned measuring outcomes that resisted quantification, such as confidence, trust and relational change. Rather than imposing standard metrics, the team used narrative and reflective methods; participants’ stories and workshop observations – to capture these subtle but significant forms of impact.

An unintended ethical implication surfaced when some participants became informal digital mentors, extending the project autonomously. While positive, this blurred the line between top-down and participatory peer mentoring. It raised questions about responsibility and support, as participants began to provide guidance beyond the structured program without formal training, recognition or safeguards. This highlights a tension between empowerment and the redistribution of care and support labour within community settings.

Evidencing impact in community-led co-design projects involves natural trade-offs. Many outcomes valued by participants, such as confidence, trust, reduced fear and willingness to try new things, are relational and emergent rather than easily captured, quantified and measured. While the project generated useful impacts, it could not attribute directly to wider societal impacts, such as health equity or population-level well-being. These impacts are best understood as contributory pathways, whereby locally embedded changes in confidence and access create conditions that may support longer-term social and health benefits. Accepting these limits is essential to ethical and credible impact reporting in participatory research.

External funding for this research was provided by The Australian Communications Consumer Action Network, the City of Whittlesea (CoW), Victoria, Australia, which both provided financial support for the implementation of the project. The University of the Third Age Network Victoria provided financial and in-kind support the entire research process, from study design to submission.

This study was supported by: (1) The Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN), (2) University of the Third Age Network Victoria (U3A) and (3) City of Whittlesea (CoW).

All individuals named in the manuscript provided explicit consent to be identified. Similarly, consent was obtained for all images used in the manuscript. Two human subject ethics permissions were approved for this project 1) Older consumers and technology 21894, and 2) Co-designing Participatory Strategies with Older Adults 24729.