Host: Japanese Society for the Science of Design
This article shares guidelines for designing for older people to age resourcefully. The demographic trend of an aging society has spurred designers to provide older people with smart products. However, these so-called gerontechnologies tend to be created with narrowly scripted use scenarios based on stereotypes of older people as immobile and technologically incompetent, which may limit their meaningful activities. In contrast, our project viewed them as capable of overcoming daily challenges, and thus explored designing 'resources' for older people that can be adapted and improvised during use. The paper shows a detailed account of a 'research through design' process involving prototypes and participants to gain design knowledge for gerongechnology.
