Within the larger study, subproject "design" faces a two-fold task: to develop new product ideas and to find their position in the market for senior products. To this end, the team is examining aspects of both product design and visual communication. 

Status quo

At the moment, our ever-aging society must select from a worrisomely narrow spectrum of products designed with the needs of senior citizens in mind. In addition, the image of most technological systems meant to assist older people maintain their independence at home suggests illness, prostheses, and social ostracism. Even today this stigmatizing picture precludes a broader acceptance for most senior-friendly products among its target population.

In terms of "old age," moreover, the diverse lifestyles and situations of people in this age group -- as varied in their later years as in their earlier ones -- are often disregarded. This blanket view of "old people" also finds expression in the absence of a culturally-differentiated product language.

Goals

Within the overall project, the challenges for subproject "design" are:

• to develop a non-stigmatizing design language for senior-friendly products,
• to enlarge the product spectrum to reflect the cultural differentiation among older people,
• to expand and optimize the areas in which senior-friendly products can function,
• to improve the cultural acceptance of senior products.

The key to these goals is the concept of product endurance and appeal, to develop products that can be used by the greatest range of age-groups ("design for all," "transgenerational design"). 

Procedure

In the first stage of this project, we will determine empirically the user-habits and needs of older people as well as their acceptance of existing "senior-friendly" products via participant observation. Here too we are cooperating with the other subproject teams. Parallel to this we will analyze the product representation by investigating advertising materials and sales settings, and analyze product design in terms of the functionality and aesthetics of existing products.

In the next step we will prepare a working catalogue of user-requirements for the new design and market positioning of senior-friendly products, including functional, aesthetic, and cultural criteria. Again we will incorporate findings from the other subprojects. In line with the principle of "participative design," the catalog will help us, via its iterative process, work out pilot designs; these, in turn, will be evaluated in user-tests, modified, and retested until the desired products are achieved.

The associative and empirically-based insights gained in this multi-step process will be translated into a development strategy for approximating the mass production of such technology, as well as corresponding strategies for market positioning.

Results

Detailed information on the studies and concepts and designs are presented at:
http://www.sentha.udk-berlin.de.

Literature

• J. J. Pirkl: Transgenerational design: products for an aging population (Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York 1994)

• R. Coleman (Ed.): Design fŸr die Zukunft (DuMont, Kšln 1997)

• E. Midwinter: New design for old: function, style and older people (Centre for Policy on Ageing, London 1988)

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