Adapting Products for Elderly: Generic Design Taxonomies

As the ageing demographic has grown over time, it has brought with it both obstacles and opportunities for development and fulfilment. Due to their reduced physical capability, the elderly are unable to comfortably perform their everyday activities with the exiting products used in the activities of daily living. However, they are familiar with how these existing products work and how to use them. As a result, these well-known existing products should be modified and redesigned to suit the needs of the elderly. The objectives of this paper are to study the problems faced by the elderly while using the existing products in daily activities and modify/redesign them according to the needs of the elderly. To achieve these objectives, this paper proposes two generic design taxonomies that are developed based on the literature review and research. These taxonomies are developed to help designers to determine design priorities based on the needs of the elderly and facilitate the process of redesigning existing products for the elderly. The usage of the proposed taxonomies will reduce the product development time. In this paper, the taxonomies are used to create survey questionnaires for the elderly to identify trouble using existing products in-order to adapt them. The survey is conducted to study the problems faced by the elderly while using existing kitchen containers.