AGING INNOVATION PROGRAM
Co-designing with Older People
With Birsel + Seck 2018/2020
Aging Well in America
Co-designing with Older Adults
OVERVIEW
This project is an experience, created in collaboration with Birsel+Seck and The SCAN Foundation (TSF). We focused on learning what older people want from life and created an open source program where we co-designed with older Americans, applying creative tools we use in strategic design to re-imagine and redesign one’s life.
ROLE
Design Researcher & Co-facilitator
Interviews, Quantitative data collection, Recruiting (location and participants), Gathering Intel, Insights, Prototyping
With Birsel+Seck
Insights from Research
Participants brought up recurring themes in the co-design workshops, regardless of the workshop topic (we conducted four different ones), geography or the various types of communities across America. Out of these 11 insights, we were able to formulate four overarching principles:
Love, Vitality, Work, and Friendship.
Opportunity Area
How might we create an easy-to-use system of high-quality services for older adults that preserve dignity and independence?
Our most profound insight was that older people want the same things we all want—Love, Vitality, Work and Friendship. We arrived at this insight after the first set of foundational workshops where we focused on unpacking the four key worries The SCAN Foundation’s research had pinpointed. Our journey and shift from worries into these opportunity areas helped shape our process, topics we chose and how we approached our user group.
LOVE
VITALITY
WORK
FRIENDSHIP
Design Principles
Designing for Community
Designing for Better Time
Designing for Follow-Through
Designing for
Mind Over Body
Designing for Courage
Designing for Building Trust
Designing for Intimacy
Designing for
Transition
Product Development
Co-Designing with Older People is a human-centered co-design process developed to better understand the wants and needs of older people by welcoming them into the design process. The learnings came directly from 65+ while empowering participants to understand their current situation and re-imagine possibilities and opportunities for fulfillment at this time of their lives.
The Facilitator Guide is specifically designed to serve as a toolkit for older Americans to re-imagine their life after 65 continuously.
The toolkit focuses on
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Process development vs. fixed solution
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Wants vs. needs
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Human experience vs industry topics
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Co-design vs. focus groups
System Constants
What will always be true
System Variables
What will remain flexible
A comprehensive insights report pointing to
innovation opportunity areas, strategies, and experiences