Designs for the Aging
Posted on October 11, 2011 | posted by:
Image Courtesy : Namkyu Chun | Q
Shortly after his retirement, Sam Farber and his wife rented a home in Provence, France for two weeks. His wife had developed arthritis and the available kitchenware including the simplest of appliances like the peeler was difficult and painful for her to use. Despite so many years of experience in the kitchenware business, Farber’s ideas of inclusion of elderly and disabled customers were not brought into focus until his personal experiences brought home the importance of the idea.
In 1989, Sam decided to establish Oxo International to produce kitchenware with older and disabled users in mind. In collaboration with Smart Design, Inc he set out to design simple kitchen appliances like the peeler. The company tried to understand the features and capabilities of the user and managed to project them onto the features and capabilities of the object. The design incorporated plump, resilient handles for twist and push-pull tools like knives and peelers while squeeze tools like can-openers had hard handles. All handles were oval in section, to better distribute the forces on the hand and enhance grip. And a marvelous thing happened by designing a line of kitchen utensils for handicapped people. The Oxo Company managed to make a breakthrough, runaway success that allowed them to create better kitchen utensils for everybody.
The Oxo ‘Goodgrips’ is often quoted as an excellent example for “Trans-generational” design. This term coined by James Pirkl almost two decades ago refers to the practice of making products and environments compatible with those physical and sensory impairments associated with human aging and those which limit major activities of daily living. Across the globe astute manufacturers, researchers, marketers and design organizations have discovered and embraced the trans-generational design concept. As global competition intensifies, they recognize the competitive advantage of attracting the attention – and collective buying power of the world’s exploding “silver market” of 506,000,000 aging consumers for they believe trans-generational design offers them that competitive advantage.
As we know, a phenomenal growth of the older segment of the population is occurring worldwide – and this growth is taking place very rapidly. Designers must understand that aging does not automatically begin at age 65; it begins with birth and ends with death. Moreover, aging is indiscriminate, irreversible, and inevitable. It will happen to each of us, but at different ages and with different results. After birth we experience a period of rapid functional growth which lasts well into our early adult years. Then follows a constant, nearly level period throughout which our capabilities gradually decrease but only at a rate of about one percent per year. Beyond this phase then begins the functional decline wherein we lose about 10 percent of the capabilities we had in the previous decade.
When designing for older people, many designers direct their focus on the later phases, the period of functional decline. Few designers, however, seem to recognize that in fact aging is really a life-long process and that most older people are not frail, severely disabled, or in need of such specialized and stigmatized devices. In the US, only one percent of all people aged 65 to 70 are in nursing homes. And even within the 85 year old group the number is less than 25 percent. This means that, in their struggle to remain independent, older people use the same kinds of products and live in the same kind of houses and apartments as the rest of us. They look to the availability of sympathetic products to make their lives much less complicated and frustrating than many of the products currently available.
The author of “In the Bubble: Designing in a complex world”, John Thackara however makes another interesting point regarding how the aging population is perceived. He believes that treating old people as a passive market for technology-based products and services is well-intended but short-sighted. A smarter approach treats elders as a knowledge asset to be exploited. Elders have and embody knowledge and insights that cannot be learned from a textbook, website, or business school. Although the twenty something’s lack of acceptance of the older generations advice could be a cause for concern, the fact remains that older people who know a great deal could not only make excellent mentors but also assist with the designing process itself.
Designers generally accept three professional responsibilities: an aesthetic responsibility, a technical responsibility and a more humane responsibility. In recent years, however, our humane responsibility has expanded the concept of ergonomics to include aging as a human factor. The term ‘universal design’ has thus become a generic umbrella term used to describe three ways to design for people who are functionally impaired or disabled: accessible design, adaptive design, and trans-generational design as the possible solutions.
While accessible design seeks to make products and environments accessible and usable by persons with disabilities (e.g. grab bars, ramps, Braille signs), adaptive design seeks to modify or adapt products or environments to the special needs of people with disabilities (e.g. writing instruments, jar and bottle openers, add-on handles).Trans-generational design approach on the other hand attempts to bridge the physical and sensory changes associated with human aging while responding to the widest range of ages and abilities without penalizing any specific group. It is design that sympathizes rather than stigmatizes.
But as James Pirkl believes, accommodating the needs of all, regardless of age or ability should become a priority for all designers, manufacturers, and health care providers. In the end, however, the validity of a trans-generational design strategy will be proved, not by proclamation, but by the swelling ranks of aging consumers voting with their purchases in tomorrow’s cut-throat international marketing arena.