Abstract
In 2017, global population aged 60 years or over reached nearly 963 million, becoming twice the figure recorded in 1980. Not surprisingly ageing population will continue to accelerate due to continuing decline in fertility and improvement in survival in major diseases. When people who are suffered from cognitive or physical impairment, they often feel alone and experience different degrees of social loneliness. This paper discusses co-design experiences with various stakeholders to explore latent needs of older persons in their daily living using a universal design approach. Through iterative use of creative methods, freehand sketching and physical models, older adults can express their needs in a more accurate, tactile format. Findings reveal that commonality of interest among older persons are important in building rapport among other participants. It also helps designers develop assistive design related to health care, mobility, dining and leisure activities involving older persons, benefiting society as a whole.
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Acknowledgments
The author would like to express our gratitude to the reviewers for their valuable comments. We would also like to thank the participants and supporting staff who took part in the main study. This research work was supported by The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Technological and Higher Education Institute of Hong Kong.
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King, Ay. (2020). Participatory Design with Older Adults: Exploring the Latent Needs of Young-Old and Middle-Old in Daily Living Using a Universal Design Approach. In: Di Bucchianico, G. (eds) Advances in Design for Inclusion. AHFE 2019. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 954. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20444-0_15
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