BWA Design
Footnote
For many older people, a fear of computers and the internet leads to their exclusion from online government services, banking, shopping, social media and remote working. With Government services increasingly delivered online, sections of society are and will be unable to interact with public services, which by autumn 2010 must be age-proofed.
BWA Design proposes to create a user-centric interface to an open-source Wiki style database that is accessible by the public and can produce practical 'how-to' guides. For example: how to pay your car tax on-line; set the alarm on your mobile phone; hem a pair of trousers or change the oil in your car. As people add information to the database, it's value as a resource will grow. It will encourage public services and manufacturers to publish instructions on the database - making it the 'place-to-go' for practical instructions.
Clinic
Sage & Onions: the experience exchange
Clinic think one of the biggest barriers to 'active ageing' is the growing gulf between generations. In an increasingly fragmented society, with more single households and dispersed families, mistrust and division between different generations has flourished. The generation gap is widened by a 'technology gap'; life skills cannot be passed on; and damaging stereotypes - of young and old - persist.The team's solution aims to bridge this divide: building on current trends to enable more interaction and exchange between different generations, offer alternative support networks, and strengthen communities.
Epitype
Open
The design and marketing industry is as guilty as any other sector of perpetuating stereotypes and discrimination relating to age. Design can play an important part in how older people view themselves and how society responds to age and ageing. Access, our communications campaign, will be designed to facilitate dialogue and deliver insight by capturing the thoughts of society in the UK; work to expose our perceptions and silent prejudices of older people and evolve to tackle these - the aim is not to create awareness of a campaign, but awareness of our own thoughts, empowering us to alter our views on behalf of our future selves.
1HQ
More: Adaptive Surface
Difficulty with transitional movement or 'the in-between,' locks people into static states of experience - the antithesis of active aging. Assistive technologies exist but are seen as niche market and unlikely to achieve substantial sales, impeding innovation. 1HQ believe that unlocking experiences for people of different ages and abilities requires full consideration of the functional aspects of design and a radical re-think of the meaning of this category. Rather than a new type of assistive technology, they envision a new type of mainstream product category. The team believe that people will buy a transfer aid not because of its utilitarian function but because of the emotional desire it generates. As Stokke transformed the meaning of their Tripp Trapp high chairs for babies into furniture for life, 1HQ see a similar opportunity for the 'in-between.'
