20.500.12556/RUP-22631 How to prevent technological issues and maximise technologies acceptance by users before implementing large-scale pilots pre-validation within the Horizon 2020 Pharaon project Background In the context of an ageing population, technological and digital solutions are increasingly emerging in the market to facilitate active and healthy ageing. However, several factors can hinder the acceptance of the solutions by the users. Indeed, during the development of digital solutions, future users are generally involved only when a Large-Scale Pilot is set up. It implies around 1 year and more than 100 people involved and it costs money. Moreover, if technical problems appear during the using of the solutions, the acceptance of it is sub-optimal or even degraded. Methods This paper presents the pre-validation approach developed and executed within the Pharaon European project to pre-evaluate digital solutions before to put in place the planned Large-Scale Pilots (LSP). 1 This pre-validation was defined as a Small-Scale Pilot involving a minimum of 5 users per type (e.g. older adults, caregivers, health professional) during a short period of time (2-hour sessions with users). The process was composed of different steps: 1/ pre-validation of individual technologies; 2/ pre-validation of technologies integration in each pilot platform; 3/ pre-validation of new technologies coming from the Pharaon Open Call. Moreover, 2 types of pre-validation were conducted at the same time: 1/ technological; 2/ willingness to use the digital solutions. A common protocol was delivered to all pilot sites, 2 questionnaires were used for collecting quantitative and qualitative results and the open platform Gitlab was used to report the technical issues. Results The pre-validation was conducted over 6 months in 6 pilot sites with more than 200 users and allowed to highlight 109 technical issues and mixed results concerning the acceptance of using technologies. The qualitative part of the results allowed to notice the needed improvements before setting up the LSP. methodology pre-validation technologies users’ acceptance pilots older adults active ageing health metodologija predvalidacija sprejemanje tehnologij s strani uporabnikov pilotni projekti starejši odrasli aktivno staranje zdravje true false true Angleški jezik Slovenski jezik Članek v reviji 2026-02-05 15:04:30 2026-02-05 15:04:32 2026-02-09 03:04:41 0000-00-00 00:00:00 2025 0 0 str. 1-19 [article no.] 102 Vol. 5 2025 0000-00-00 Zaloznikova NiDoloceno NiDoloceno 0000-00-00 0000-00-00 0000-00-00 004 2732-5121 10.12688/openreseurope.19002.1 267505923 RAZ_Lesterpt_Isabelle_2025.pdf RAZ_Lesterpt_Isabelle_2025.pdf 1 A053D95078231F4CE97A9525509D5258 e6b75c19de94fdc8b5a81aad00473d98e6fdddd8c3ae4debfae438164f23bf59 b6dc6978-029b-11f1-b092-005056ac49c0 https://repozitorij.upr.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=32934 https://open-research-europe.ec.europa.eu/articles/5-102/v1 1 a08db9ea-029b-11f1-b092-005056ac49c0 https://repozitorij.upr.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=32933 Fakulteta za matematiko, naravoslovje in informacijske tehnologije 0 0 0