Co-designing a solution against late-life loneliness with older adults through journalistic research in a newspaper

This paper presents a comprehensive reference for an innovative low-contact co-design approach, aimed at mitigating sample bias commonly found in traditional co-design workshops for eHealth technologies. By partnering with a regional newspaper (134 000 readers), we engaged the broader public in the co-design process, to tackle the issue of late-life loneliness. We employed co-design fiction, dilemma-driven, and empathic design methods, integrating these within journalistic content to prompt the reader responses. This initiative attracted 77 responses, including 34 from older adults (65+ years), 27 of whom shared personal experiences with loneliness. Our findings highlight the potential of low-contact, co-design via newspapers to foster inclusive participation, overcoming the limitations of conventional workshops, and enabling engagement with a more representative population sample. • Successfully conducted low-contact co-design using the local newspaper during COVID-19. • Battling the challenge of sample bias in co-designing eHealth technologies through journalistic design research. • A combination of co-design fiction, dilemma-driven design and empathic design employed participatory design. • The low-contact co-design approach through a newspaper engaged 80 000 readers and elicited 77 unique responses. • Elicited responses from the desired target group reducing sample bias in co-design.