Next week on September 16 I’ll be participating in the Seattle Design Festival (#sdfaging) moderating a panel discussion “Enlivening Design For Aging” with some of the most pro-aging designers and elder-advocates I’ve ever met.
Our panelists include Carina Ngai of Inflection and formerly Samsung exploring how designing for our future selves can help us think about aging differently; Eric Baczuk of the vaunted frog Design team sharing incredible new insights from recent concept development to empower aging-in-place; and Cara Lauer of Seattle Senior Services on tapping into the paradox of aging — the fact that elders are happier and more fulfilled than younger people despite living in the context of physical decline.
In Part 1 of my blog post on Design For Aging I took a humorous approach to ageism inspired by Craig Ferguson’s monologue explaining Why Everything Sucks. In short, widespread ageism fueled by our obsession with youth distorts our mass media, popular culture, fashion and just about all aspects of design.
Now I’d like to explore what that means on a practical level for designers and what we need to do about it.
I’m not a designer by training or background but through years of work in marketing and in collaboration with designers I’ve gained a fair understanding of the principles and power of good design thinking. Taken straight from the wiki, design thinking requires the designer to put themselves in the user’s shoes and combine empathy for their particular need with creativity and rationality to develop the best solution to fit their need.
Obviously, one of the consequences of ageism is that older adults get left out of the design process because designers are focused overwhelmingly on developing products for younger demographics. But the problem is actually much more complicated than merely neglecting to take elder’s needs into consideration. The fact is older people are quite a bit more challenging to design for than younger people.
And I’m not talking about physical decline or other negative stereotypes we associate with aging. Guess what — people of all ages live with “special needs” such as vision or hearing impairment or limited mobility and dexterity.
No — I’m talking about the overall immense diversity, richness and complexity that is only gained by a lifetime of experience — and our culture’s refusal to recognize and honor this. It is not harder to design for older adults just because they have special needs — it is harder to design for them because we refuse to acknowledge they are vastly more complex, nuanced and interesting than younger people.
Now, I don’t want to bash youth any more than necessary. Like Craig Ferguson said it’s not their fault they’re stupid — that’s what being young and inexperienced is all about! The reality is, if you take a room full of 20-year-olds, their tastes, interests and needs are going to be VASTLY more homogenous and conforming than the tastes, interests and needs of a room full of 80-year-olds.
This does not mean we need more “senior-friendly” products designed specially for older adults. It means we need to raise the design bar for all products. Some people call this universal design or inclusive design. Whatever you call it, it is the defining characteristic of the technologies and products that are most successful among all age groups, like the Nintendo Wii and iPad. The Wii is not so successful among older adults because Nintendo designed it specifically for them — it’s successful because it has a universal design focused on people’s strengths (imagination, playfulness), not their weaknesses (physical decline).
ChangingAging gets pitched by developers of new “senior-friendly” products on almost a daily basis. My simple, non-expert advice to these designers is — DO NOT DESIGN BASED ON DECLINE. Even if you’re trying to solve an urgent problem, focus on the users’ strengths, not their weakness.
There’s a huge race right now to create products and services that meet the unique demands of older adults. One example is remote home monitoring devices like Lively, Amulyte and Be-Close, intended to help people stay independent in their homes longer. These are all nice products designed with great intentions (as I said in my review of Lively). But I can guarantee that the device that breaks through all the competition and emerges as the consumer choice in this market will not come from one of those companies — it will be a product with a universal design. My hunch is it will be some kind of next generation fitness monitoring device, like the Jawbone UP, FitBit or Nike Fuel Band.
And the irony will be that none of those companies even had older people in mind when they designed these products.
I think this article does a great job of talking about how old people are more experienced than others and it isn’t that they have a lack of vision or hearing. I think it is difficult to design a product that is fit for both older and younger generations because younger generations have very different interests than those who are older. It would take a good designer to make a product that both young and old people love.
Focus really seems to be on physical decline instead of strengths. Any design elements should be age friendly and not just senior friendly.
I think this article did a great job talking about the need for designs that aren’t just for the older people. This article also was able to talk about the younger adults without degrading them, instead it talked about how designs are around the younger population.
I liked how the article stated, “do not design based on decline.” This is true because if a person focused on decline there would be no joy in the design.
The part of the article that stood out to me the most was when it said, “design thinking requires the designer to put themselves in the user’s shoes and combine empathy for their particular need with creativity and rationality to develop the best solution to fit their need.” This reminded me of how creating something with a universal design requires someone who isn’t afraid to do something different. Like it says in the article, creating products designed for older adults can be more challenging due to them having more experience and diversity. I think that designers who are not afraid to think outside of the box are going to be the key for having more products with a universal design to be out on the market.
What an interesting article, I really enjoyed reading it! I like how the article states,”do not design based on decline”. Im sure that is really important because if they did focus on the decline the user would’t fully enjoy the design.
It must take input from a lot of different people with different backgrounds to come up with good universal design ideas. Do you feel that there’s a wide representation of voices in that conversation today? If not, who’s missing? Where did universal design first start to pop up?
I found it interesting that the author acknowledges the fact that the older generation needs more help with the products than the younger population.
I like his advice of “do not design based on decline”. Designers should definitely focus on the strengths to make the design better for the user, and it will probably make them like or enjoy the product more. The needs of older adults, like he said, are different from those of younger adults, so it is important for the designers to put themselves in the user’s shoes. I think the use of universal design is especially important when making products for older adults.
Before reading this article, I had not realized how focused industries are on designing products based on disabilities and decline instead of capabilities and universality. Items that can be used by any individual of any ability level or age is the most viable option when designing products, and this seems to be common knowledge, although it is not. Why do companies still focus on specific age groups or declines instead of producing products and offering services that anyone could use? This makes the most sense when thinking of the design process, yet it is mostly not thought of. I wonder why this is.
I think this article was great at addressing the underlining need for designs that aren’t just “senior-friendly”, like stated, but that go much deeper than that. I like how the younger audience was brought up and not in a degrading way, but that it shed light on how consumed designs are around the younger population. I also liked the comment to not just design for decline.
I think it is a great way for designer’s to put themselves in their shoes. I think it is important for these producers to make these for all ages and not just age specific. Although, I understand that elders may have a different need than younger adults. I thought the examples were kind of basic toward the younger adults. I do like the comment about the WII but again, elders and younger adults will have different mind sets but producers need to keep certain things in mind.
When reading this article, it made me realize how many items are based on one specific generation or group. A designer should bring a product into the market by making it user friendly or marketable to anyone and everyone. Not only to allow for a larger group of people to get the product but also to make their product more interesting to multiple groups.
I believe that it is a good idea for developers to be in the shoes of the people that are obtaining their product. Also, the conversation that was geared toward the younger adults/generation seemed a little bit on the thick side which makes sense, but it isn’t truly ideal when one is talking about universal design.
I think that is is a really good idea for the designer to put themselves in the user’s shoes. This can bring ideas that they would have not thought of otherwise. I agree that elders have different needs than younger adults, but I thought that some of the comments toward younger adults were a little blunt.
You are completely right that a lot of products seem to focus on addressing physical decline instead of celebrating strengths. Marketers, designers, and manufacturers need to really know their audience and not make assumptions about what it means to be a senior or a baby boomer. Any design elements should be age friendly and not just senior friendly. Really innovative ideas are creating solutions that can help people of any age, which can lead to more interaction among generations and community members.
It’s not helpful to repeat the calumny that being young equates with being stupid, as though experience makes you clever. I wish!!!
I think one of the reasons designers ignore older people is that designers design for their own age group. In other words, they design things that they or their friends would like to wear. Paris, New York and London couturiers don’t design stuff for teenagers, for example.