Older people and product design

Industry’s ideas about the usability of their products doesn’t match those of older people. That’s what the Centre for Modern Ageing found in their survey of 1000 older people and product design. Given Australia’s ageing population, product designers should focus more on making everyday products more user-friendly. That means taking a universal design approach and using co-design methods.

Key findings from the survey

Key findings focused on products older people use in their daily lives.

Grip issues related to slippery handles, tight lids, weight of products, and small text on labels and confusing instructions weren’t helpful either. Product packaging is also a challenge and probably not just for older people.

Electronic devices with menus and different functions as well as issues connecting devices to others and to networks were difficult and challenging.

The title of the report is Empowering Older Australian with Better Product Usability. Go to the Global Centre for Modern Ageing to download the report for more detail.

Help for product designers

The Inclusive Design Toolkit from the University of Cambridge has an Exclusion Calculator to show how many people can’t use a design due to their level of capability. It covers most of the issues discussed in the report. It’s an excellent online resource for product designers.

The Universal Design of Products and Services has more detailed information which includes guidelines on body size.

Note that some designs are potentially covered by the Australian Disability Discrimination Act.

Useability of small kitchen appliances

Meal preparation is something most of us do every day. It’s not until you can’t do it that you realise how much it impacts on wellbeing, independence and quality of life. 

Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee worked with General Electric to develop an audit tool they can apply to the design of their small appliances. The tool can be used by engineers, retailers and individuals as well.

The title of the tool is Small Kitchen Appliance Accessibility and Universal Design Information Tool (SKA AUDIT). It includes 7 features: doors, lids, dials, on/off water reservoirs, buttons and “ready” indicators. Both physical and cognitive conditions were considered in the development of the tool.

The title of the article is Small Kitchen Appliance Accessibility and Universal Design Information Tool (SKA AUDIT).  

The Pain of Design

Arthritis is a common condition and is not often referred to as a disability. However, the pain of arthritis is disabling. So how to design out pain? Design Council ran a workshop with people with arthritis. They found that no-one was interested in special products, which are often stigmatising. So the principle of inclusive design became the top issue.

“Inclusive design is crucial. You have to step away from the idea that it’s “older people” having a problem and start looking at a universal problem and therefore a universal solution.”

They found the most important thing is that people want desirable, stylish, mainstream products that anyone would want to own. People don’t want medicalised, stigmatising equipment. Clearly, including the user-voice is the way to design for all rather than the mythical average. 

The article is titled, Ollie Phelan of Versus Arthritis writes about the importance of the end-user being at the heart of design, and can be accessed on the Medium.com website where there is more information.

Inclusive instructions for domestic appliances

Is your new kitchen gadget or appliance intuitive to use? How about the instructions on the device? Every model of microwave, even within the same brand, has a different operating system. This doesn’t help. And some of the icons that are meant to guide the user don’t make sense to everyone in the same way. So what can industrial designers do about creating inclusive instructions for domestic appliances? A human-centred design approach provides some answers.

Three researchers looked at how this problem can be solved because kitchen appliances are an essential part of life now. Their study took the perspective of older adults, which implies they are the only group with cognition and mental processing issues. Once again, what might be good for some will be good for many others.

The researchers came up with a coding system to help designers and used a microwave as the case study. The coding system considers four aspects of users’ interactions with a microwave. Briefly they are:

The study describes their process for developing the coding system for designers, and the details each of the four elements of the code. While other studies use a series of personas, this study used real people and their negative experiences. The researchers also linked the microwave use with ready meal packaging. This allowed them to see the difficulties in interpreting the cooking information and relating it to the device.

Getting it right for users

Simple turning knobs and switches with numbered dials are a thing of the past. So anyone who has difficulty transitioning to a digital display is going to be disadvantaged. Microwaves are an essential tool for people who have difficulty preparing a meal because they can heat ready-made meals.

Poor organisation of information appeared to be a powerful factor in influencing users’ information processing and interactions. The key appears to be getting both sequencing information together as well as activity grouping information. This poses further challenges.

Involving real people and not personas is the key to resolving design issues for users. The researchers acknowledge that getting it right for older people means benefits for many other users.

The title of the article is, A design evaluation tool for older adults using domestic information processing appliances.