User-sensitive Inclusive Design for Technology in Everyday Life

This chapter will explore, consider and suggest inclusive approaches to designing products and technology which are sensitive to users with a wide range of characteristics including those who are elderly and/or disabled.

We are surrounded by numerous products in our daily lives and an inability to use, or great difficulty in using, a product that we need in our daily life can put us at a significant disadvantage. This could be because our interactions with the product have been impaired by our physical and mental limitations or impairments and/or caused by inadequate design, inconsiderate services and environments and socio-cultural stereotypes. Both the technology and the user experience will change in the future, but the challenges, particularly for older people will remain. Unless engineers and technologists give due consideration to the characteristics and experiences of end-users, and how these can change, it is likely that, as the current generation of even tech-savvy younger adults grow old, they will find products and user interfaces more and more difficult to understand and use. Successful design needs to be sensitive both to understanding changing users needs and capabilities, and to the context of use. This chapter introduces some of the key tools and approaches used in the field of design that will assist readers in understanding age-related changes in abilities and experience-related factors of end-users.

We begin by considering age-related changes in abilities, followed by discussing how technology has changed in the last century and how contact with previous technologies and experience-related factors can influence our ability to use current technologies. We will discuss the concept of User Sensitive Inclusive Design: how it can play a role in the design of everyday technology by providing natural and intuitive interactions, which crucially delight rather than stigmatize and alienates end-users.