Preferences, not prosthetics, should be a designer's main concern when thinking up new products aimed at older users, the experts tell KARLIN LILLINGTON
HOW DO you design a technology product for older users? By never, ever referencing the fact that the product incorporates features that might suit an older user, says design guru Gus Desbarats from design consultancy the Alloy in the UK.
“You do not ever, ever target stuff at ‘the old’. It’s never to be used in marketing, it’s only to work out the practical needs of your market,” he told a seminar at the annual Business of Aging conference in Dublin recently.
As an example, he pinpoints the mobile phones targeted at the older user, with large keypads and simplified features.
One of the most beloved and popular handsets of all time was the Nokia 6310, he notes, a simple handset no longer made by the company but which many people still buy on eBay and hoard. Stephen Fry and Jeremy Clarkson are two well-known enthusiasts.
The 6310, because of its simple design, is a great handset for older users, but was never marketed as such, and appealed to all.
By contrast, these days, Desbarats says, older people tend to be “offered patronising phones” with gigantic buttons marketed to “the elderly”.
He notes: “A mobile phone is an expression of you. Those other phones say, ‘I have given up’.”
So how does a good designer approach the issue? By designing with the older user in mind, but prioritising an emotionally appealing, beautifully designed product that can appeal to all ages.
A flip-factor phone can be great for an older user because larger buttons can be hidden away, he notes. And the iPhone uses software as an approach, he says – the keypad on an iPhone is actually very large and easy to use, but in no way does the iPhone shout “older user”.
Good designers might see hearing aids not as clumsy-looking indicators of a disability but as an opportunity to design a product for “cool hearing augmentation”.
Why not incorporate ambient amplification, a music player, and a wireless headset for use with that age-neutral phone?
A good designer should aim for “preferences, not prosthetics”; offering such a hearing aid is an example of separating image from a practical approach. Better user interfaces should be a priority for older users, but every issue highlighted by Desbarats applies as well to any user of technology, signalling how good design is relevant to all.
“PC ownership is just one of the worst consumer experiences on the planet,” he says.
So is using e-mail, setting up a home network, using most websites, doing most device upgrades, and, he adds, “just about all consumer electronics”.
Getting technology right opens up a huge market opportunity: good technology resolves many social exclusion issues that have to do with mobility. “Technology is a key piece of social glue.”
David Sinclair, head of policy and research for the International Longevity Centre in the UK, agrees. “The PC is very cumbersome and hard to use. It’s not intuitive – for example you use the start button to turn it off.”
Perhaps this is one reason why older people are less likely to go online – fewer of the over-50s are online in Ireland than in Britain, he says in an interview after his keynote talk. But this market is wealthier than younger age groups, and so has greater potential to buy products and use online services.
“We might need to look at other ways to bring older people onto the net – for example, smart phones, TVs, and tablet computers.”
What could really change things, he says, is touchscreens, as they tend to be far more intuitive and eliminate the need to use a mouse, a peripheral device that can be confusing for many older people.
Older people also have “huge issues around trust that affect their willingness to buy online”.
Yet, as he says: “Technology has really exciting potential for older people. We need to overcome the challenges, and design well.”
Many speakers at the event emphasised the business opportunity that industry still seems largely to ignore.
“Baby-boomers have absolutely no intention of sitting back and doing nothing. They expect to go out and spend their money,” notes global futurist Anne Lise Kjaer.
Technology and online services offer “huge opportunity” for learning (for example, via free TED.org talks), “constantly creating new communities” (using Skype or Facebook), facilitating good health (using Nintendo brain gymnastics, or Groupon for gadgets and mobile security).
She notes that a quarter of Facebook users are aged over 45, which marks a significant shift in the past five years.
Statistics from a survey of 500 older consumers in Ireland presented by Amárach Consulting in Dublin confirm that older users are online in increasing numbers and that many are quite actively using online services. Some 38 per cent say they use the internet, with slightly more users in Dublin than other parts of the State.
The main website they visit is Google (38 per cent), followed by Facebook (19 per cent), then Ryanair, RTE.com and MSN/Hotmail.
For secondary websites, they cite banking services, Aerlingus.com, eBay, Yahoo, DoneDeal, YouTube and Irishtimes.com.
Of those who go online at least every two to three months, 80 per cent use e-mail, 37 per cent use Skype and 29 per cent use Facebook. Five per cent are on Twitter, 4 per cent on LinkedIn and 2 percent blog.
But take a tip from the conference: don’t call them “silver surfers”.
