Research Buddy—From a Framework for Overcoming Language Barriers to the Development of a Qualitative Citizen Science Platform

Students benefit from international study programmes in fields such as HCI. However, user-centred research in a foreign country has some challenges, especially language hurdles when going into the field and conducting ethnographic and participatory studies. A particular obstacle is added when targeting groups that do not speak English, such as in Germany, where English was not taught in schools until the 1970s. The task and challenge of the present project, ‘Research Buddy’, is to bring together young international students and older people as co-researchers in Germany. We describe the participatory development of the concept of a matching platform and its design. In focus groups with older people, university faculty and students, requirements for a collaborative research infrastructure were jointly identified and prototypically implemented. The empirical results focus on the possibilities the platform offers for qualitative citizen science in the field of age tech.