Co-designing a real-time digital experience sampling approach to understanding ageing well in the right place: The place-based inclusion of older people with Intellectual Disabilities and older LGBT+ people

Ageing well in place is a multidimensional concept that involves maintaining inter/independence, meaningful community participation, and a sense of purpose and belonging within supportive environments. For older people with intellectual disabilities and/or who identify as LGBT+, social and cultural inequalities can interact with age related challenges such as morbidities and contracting social networks to hinder ageing well in place. This paper details the design and development of the Place Study, a digital, real-time Experience Sampling Method created to explore how older people with intellectual disabilities and/or who identify as LGBT+ navigate everyday experiences of inclusion and exclusion in physical places and online spaces which form their communities. The Place Study was co-designed with people with lived experience using principles of Community-Based Participatory Research to evaluate the usability, accessibility, and clarity of the study tool. The tool uses the ArcGIS Powered by Editorial Manager® and ProduXion Manager® from Aries Systems Corporation StoryMap platform to enable participants to submit reports consisting of multiple modalities, including text, audio, photographs, and geolocation, allowing for the generation of nuanced reflections of experiences of being in place. Iterative feedback from evaluation groups formed of people with intellectual disabilities and people who identify as LGBT+ allowed for refinements to accessibility and the creation of appropriate and effective scaffolding. Key challenges included hardware usability, software limitations, and the implementation of tailored and ongoing support. Solutions were co-produced through an action/feedback loop, resulting in a refined data generation tool with appropriate scaffolding to enhance participant engagement.