Older people as a focus for inclusive design

This paper takes an extreme, and to some extent stereotypical, view of the various ‘inclusive design’ paradigms. It has been written to be provocative, and to encourage designers to adopt a radical approach to including older and disabled people within their design brief. It recommends focussing on the needs and wants of older users followed by addressing the challenge of including able bodied people in the potential user group, rather than vice-versa. The paper concludes by suggesting the use of professional theatre to assist this process. The paper focuses on Information Technology systems, but a similar argument can be applied to product design.

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