Reframing design culture and aging

Design professionals with a commitment to participatory design all want to engage with real people. A focus of discussion at the workshop was the nature of this engagement and how to rethink the dynamic relationship between older people and the designers in the design process. Working directly within the everyday practices of a group with similar interests independent of their age, physical abilities, or professional practices can help researchers co-create concepts in everyday contexts. In practice there are various ways that designers can be more reflective about their own conceptualizations of aging. At a very simple level, designers can reflect on and integrate an enriched understanding of aging as a positive adaptive process into the design visuals and design languages they create, namely the pictures and slogans they use, the logos they design, and the forms of communications and prototypes they build.