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Technology Development with Older People: The Role of “Unfettered Design”

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Human Aspects of IT for the Aged Population. Technologies, Design and User Experience (HCII 2020)

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Abstract

This article introduces a new method to design with older people: unfettered design. We discuss three points of concern with existing methods of involving older users: unspecific design outcomes, prejudiced views on older users, and underlying power asymmetries, which can diminish the innovative capacities of the older adults involved. To overcome these issues, we argue for the benefits of adopting unfettered design. Through unfettered design, the users involved are given the space to explore design ideas on their own terms, and unusual and unsolicited responses are explicitly desired and listened to. This, in turn, may help designers to elicit novel design ideas and identify potentials for innovative technologies. Thereby, designers may learn about the concerns and potentials for which older adults would find technologies particularly helpful - a crucial aspect considering rather low levels of technology uptake in this population segment. We illustrate our approach by means of examples from our own design experiences, and we formulate four core principles of unfettered design: ongoing reflection, retained impartiality, a distinct focus on the participants’ view and remaining flexible throughout the procedure. Having undergone several waves of both technological and social change, older adults possess unique experiences and tacit knowledge that can serve as valuable inspirations for designers. Unfettered design can be particularly helpful to benefit from these competences during design projects.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Of course, the role and influence of designers may itself be limited by other contextual influences as well as the agency of users [33, 34]. However, while designers themselves may have to deal with a multiplicity of constraints, in any single involvement procedure, the positions of designers and users are not perfectly equal [40]. Design actions relate to the perceptions, notions and ideas designers have about possible users, both consciously and unconsciously.

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Acknowledgements

Our proposed approach has emerged out of several design workshops conducted during an ongoing EU project: BConnect@Home, which focuses on co-designing technologies that may support older people as they maintain connected at home. This work is funded by the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare [grant number: 2017-02301] as part of the More Years, Better Lives Joint Programme (MYBL). Furthermore, we are thankful to the many people that participated during our workshops.

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  1. Department of Biomedical Engineering and Health Systems, Royal Institute of Technology KTH, Stockholm, Sweden

    Björn Fischer & Britt Östlund

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  1. Björn Fischer
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Correspondence to Björn Fischer .

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  1. Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    Qin Gao

  2. Chongqing University, Chongqing, China

    Jia Zhou

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Fischer, B., Östlund, B. (2020). Technology Development with Older People: The Role of “Unfettered Design”. In: Gao, Q., Zhou, J. (eds) Human Aspects of IT for the Aged Population. Technologies, Design and User Experience. HCII 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12207. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50252-2_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50252-2_2

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