6 Design Concepts From IDEO That Rethink Aging

Owl IDEO Palo Alto designed a kit that helps you capture thoughts and bits of wisdom throughout the years. The Owl comes with 80 glass tubes, each representing a year of your life. Photo: IDEO

Owl IDEO Palo Alto designed a kit that helps you capture thoughts and bits of wisdom throughout the years. The Owl comes with 80 glass tubes, each representing a year of your life.

Photo: IDEO

You scribble a thought or memory down on paper, roll it up and stick it in a tube. Think of it as a high-design time capsule. In a time where most of our memories are digital, the goal of the Owl is to slow down time, to tangibly represent the aging process. Photo: IDEO

You scribble a thought or memory down on paper, roll it up and stick it in a tube. Think of it as a high-design time capsule. In a time where most of our memories are digital, the goal of the Owl is to slow down time, to tangibly represent the aging process.

Photo: IDEO

Pill Necklace This necklace, designed by IDEO London, is meant to spur conversation about meds. The jewelry, which resembles a candy necklace, is meant to remind the wearer's loved ones how often they’ve taken their pills. Dividers split the pills into day parts. Usability-wise, this necklace would be way too fiddly, but it's really meant to spur discussion around the issue. “It’s a bit of a provocation,” says Addi. Image: IDEO

Pill Necklace This necklace, designed by IDEO London, is meant to spur conversation about meds. The jewelry, which resembles a candy necklace, is meant to remind the wearer's loved ones how often they’ve taken their pills. Dividers split the pills into day parts. Usability-wise, this necklace would be way too fiddly, but it's really meant to spur discussion around the issue. “It’s a bit of a provocation,” says Addi.

Image: IDEO

Goofy Foot Walker A walker makes people feel old. “No one wants to be seen with one,” says Addi. But being able to modify your stuff—even a walker—brings a bit of humor into what could otherwise be a humorless situation. As Addi sees it, “At this stage in your life you can either be in denial, or you can be self deprecating.” Image: IDEO

Goofy Foot Walker A walker makes people feel old. “No one wants to be seen with one,” says Addi. But being able to modify your stuff—even a walker—brings a bit of humor into what could otherwise be a humorless situation. As Addi sees it, “At this stage in your life you can either be in denial, or you can be self deprecating.”

Image: IDEO

Grey Mirror The Grey Mirror, designed by IDEO Boston, is a reminder that the choices we make now actually do impact on our future lives. The mirror shows you how you’ll look in a few decades via artificially aged photographs. IDEO hopes will spur better choices in the present, but not surprisingly, beauty companies have been very interested in the idea. “They’ve been asking, how conceptual is this?” says Addi. Image: IDEO

Grey Mirror The Grey Mirror, designed by IDEO Boston, is a reminder that the choices we make now actually do impact on our future lives. The mirror shows you how you’ll look in a few decades via artificially aged photographs. IDEO hopes will spur better choices in the present, but not surprisingly, beauty companies have been very interested in the idea. “They’ve been asking, how conceptual is this?” says Addi.

Image: IDEO

Overdelivery Not every concept is an object. Overdelivery is a service that add a little extra care to the delivery of stuff. Background-checked workers will help the elderly with simple tasks like moving heavy boxes or setting up appliances. Over time, they can keep an eye on the recipient's health—like a grandchild in a UPS uniform. Photo: IDEO

Overdelivery Not every concept is an object. Overdelivery is a service that add a little extra care to the delivery of stuff. Background-checked workers will help the elderly with simple tasks like moving heavy boxes or setting up appliances. Over time, they can keep an eye on the recipient's health—like a grandchild in a UPS uniform.

Photo: IDEO

Up In YearsA campaign designed by IDEO Boston brings awareness to a hidden truth: Your grandma still likes to do it. STDs are a serious problem among the elderly, a fact that IDEO calls out in a blunt, if a little uncomfortable, way. “We’re acknowledging that these things do exist, and looking for solutions,” says Addi. IDEO

Up In YearsA campaign designed by IDEO Boston brings awareness to a hidden truth: Your grandma still likes to do it. STDs are a serious problem among the elderly, a fact that IDEO calls out in a blunt, if a little uncomfortable, way. “We’re acknowledging that these things do exist, and looking for solutions,” says Addi.

IDEO

Our world is aging rapidly, but we’re also aging for longer. Globally, the average life expectancy has increased by six years since 1990, which is more significant than it might sound. As life expectancy changes, the way we think about getting older is changing, too. Problem is, there’s very little attention being paid to that fact in the design world.

For its most recent of DesignsOn, IDEO asked its offices to come up with a series of designs that addresses that problem. DesignsOn started in 2008 as an internal challenge for IDEO designers to address tricky issues like global warming, food, birth and now aging. It’s an exercise in thinking blue sky and conceptually about a problem, a chance to answer hard questions without the constraints of a client. Like, for instance: How can you improve the aging process through good design?

The 19 resulting concepts are a varied collection of answers from designers around the world. “We originally did this because we felt like for all the talk and statistics and buzz, things weren’t really getting designed,” says Gretchen Addi, a partner at IDEO who headed up DesignsOn Aging.

The way we experience our age is different now than a couple decades ago. Today, people are less concerned with a number than life stage. “In my parents’ generation, the expected lifespan was 75 years old, max probably,” says Addi. “When they reached 50 or 55 they were thinking differently than someone today who thinks about their life at 50 or 55.”

IDEO’s designs look at the issue through the lens of: How can we make it easier, more fun and, most importantly, more relevant to get older? Check out the slideshow for some of their ideas.