6 Design Concepts From IDEO That Rethink Aging




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.



No comments:

Post a Comment