Ageing in design and technology
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This document discusses how ageing and design can contradict each other but that with persistence and adapting to user needs over many years, useful products for an ageing population can be successful. It provides examples of both successful long-lasting products like Good Night Lamp that address family connection needs over a decade as well as design fiction projects that failed to be implemented. The author advocates for continuous user research and seeing design as an ongoing sales process to meet changing user needs rather than a one-off problem solving exercise.
Ageing in design and technology
- 1. Ageing, design and technology: a contradiction in terms? Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino twitter/insta: @iotwatch
- 2. First UK distributor of Arduino. Consultant at designswarm. Founder of Good Night Lamp. Organiser of the London Internet of Things meetup since 2011. Writing a book on smart homes. Steering a bottom-up internet of things certification mark.
- 3. Good Night Lamp™ Helping families connect and sync up across time & places.
- 6. Universal access We use mobile phone networks, this is the most complicated way but is the more universal. It’s also the most expensive.
- 7. Universal access It means we can cater to customers who experience very different ways of living: Global families Recovery from illness Chronic stress Anxious about social media
- 8. This wasn’t designed. We started with a simple need of connecting my family. The rest has come from being public, clear about the objective but open enough. And sticking to a vision for ten years.
- 10. Most businesses fail within 2 years. Of any kind.
- 11. This applies to the space of design & ageing. The space of design is littered with great intentions and much failure. It takes decades to find a stable market for what you are designing. People have to ‘accept’ your product as part of their lives, no matter how useful it might be.
- 12. The most creative ideas are often the ones that are impossible to implement and make real. We often call that ‘Design Fiction’.
- 13. Some examples: Superflux. See What I Mean Buddy app Amazings Bestic Design Council Paro Sphere
- 14. Thoughts: Prepare to be ready to react to the unexpected at every point of your product’s development. User research is never done, it hides in the User experience work you do and the service you provide. You are selling something to someone. Design is a sales exercise as much as a problem solving exercise.