Our
exploding aging population is creating
an inevitable sea change in attitudes, opportunities,
and marketplaces world wide. How must tomorrow's product
and enviromental designs respond?
We
are living in a unique period. Never before has the world
contained so many older people – or such a large percentage
of them. For the first time in the history of our planet the
generational epicenter of advanced societies is shifting from
youth to age
– from adolescence to maturity.
Today, 50 million middle-aged Baby Boomers,
the driving force behind yesterday's youth culture, are racing toward the threshold of senior citizenship. Their
collective demands for age-accommodating products and environments are sparking a dramatic transformation of our products
and environments, houses and workplaces, transportation systems
– even our playgrounds and recreational facilities.
We're on the threshold of a
new design era that acknowledges and addresses the older
population's search for environmental equality. A ground swell
of demand for intelligent human-centered design is being heard
throughout the world, and it's signaling the
beginning of the end of descrimination by design.
The Key Issue.
The key issue is persuading manufacturers and home builders to provide transgenerational products and environments that:
- help people of all ages and abilities remain active and independent,
- adapt to our changing sensory and physical needs,
- enable us to choose the appropriate means to accomplish our activities of daily living.
Such transgenerational products and environments do not discriminate, infer aging, patronize, or stereotype users. Rather, transgenerational designs are attractive and appeal to young and older users. In short, they accommodate rather than discriminate; they sympathize rather than stigmatize.
How can you support, encourage and promote the practice of transgenerational design?
- First, deemphasize
any design's association with such terms as "old people," "disability," or "the
handicaped." Such demeaning or stigmatizing connotations
cause such designs to be avoided or rejected by the very groups they are
intended to attract and serve.
- Second, expand the potential
of transgenerational design to include such wider societal and environmental issues as recreation, communication, public housing, mass transportation, indoor air quality, lighting
and noise control.
- Third, reject suggestions that
transgenerational design comes only at a premium. There should
be no, or very little, difference in cost between a product that works for all
and a product that only works for a few.
- And lastly, establish design
for all ages and abilities as a core value throughout the professional design community and a required
element of design education.
As manufacturers and builders increasingly recognize
the impact of our swellling "transgenerational" population,
competition to attract this market will intensitify. We
can help you compete successfully!
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