Design the Technological Society for an Aging Population

Abstract

Inclusivity of design for an aging population will be one of the most critical problems to address in the near and far future. With advancing age comes new needs, goals, and unique issues – all of which may be ameliorated through well-designed systems and technologies. But what does it mean to be “well-designed”? In this chapter, the authors discuss the background research supporting design principles that take into account age-related changes in cognition, movement, and behavior. These are then applied in a worked example of a “car of the future,” partly constructed with current technologies, but also imagining near and far future advances. They conclude with a discussion of how to employ these principles in practice, both when designing new and cutting-edge technologies from the ground-up and revising systems and technologies already in place.