The consensus seems to be that some characteristics are identifiable but that they neither apply exclusively to the older population nor to all members of the older population. The increased variability with age must be remembered.
Identifiable characteristics include:
* physiological ones, especially slowness
* experiential ones, e.g. previous experiences, response to computers, learning style,
wariness, expectations, motivations, interests
* more time
We must not see older people as less valuable because of any of these things.
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Question 1b: How do these characteristics impact on design?
We need to design for people ... not for people who are old,
but there are some ways these issues can be taken into account:
* Designers should be sensitive to these issues and design for them
e.g. limited mobility affects the design and use of buttons
* Think of alternatives, give multiple options, use multimodality
* Redundancy
* Simplicity
* Enable technology to be personalised
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Question 2: Is designing for older people different from designing for the population as a whole?
Yes, in that we're designing for someone whose experience we never had and we're having to cope with a wider range of abilities, experiences and expectations.
But it's unclear how this is different from designing for the general population. It's important that older people are not "ghettoised".
One "difference" is that working with older people does often highlight problems which aren't apparent when working with younger groups.
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Question 2b: How do we do it?
There seems to be a consensus towards participatory design, working with older people. There are, however, challenges in communication, e.g. due to a lack of common vocabulary.
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Question 3: Can themes and ideas from inclusive design be incorporated effectively when designing for older people in particular?
Inclusive design *should* produce effective products for all people. But putting it into practice requires interdisciplinary teams to work together.
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Other:
We need to ask ourselves why we're designing for older people. Does what we do actually improve their lives? There is the danger that technology could actually make things worse.
The response to this challenge focused on enabling people to keep up with the general social transformation produced by the introduction of electronic technology and helping them not to be excluded from society as it changes.
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