Identifying and Addressing Implicit Ageism in the Co-Design of Services for Aging People

Elena Comincioli, Eemeli Hakoköngäs and Masood Masoodian
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Elena Comincioli: School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Aalto University, 02150 Espoo, Finland
Eemeli Hakoköngäs: Department of Social Sciences, Social Psychology, University of Eastern Finland, 70210 Kuopio, Finland
Masood Masoodian: School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Aalto University, 02150 Espoo, Finland

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 13, 1-25

Abstract: In a world with an increasingly aging population, design researchers and practitioners can play an essential role in shaping better future societies, by designing environments, tools, and services that positively influence older adults’ everyday experiences. The World Health Organization (WHO) has proposed a framework called Healthy Ageing, which can be adopted as the basis for designing for an aging society. There are, however, many challenges in achieving this goal. This article addresses one of these challenges identified by WHO, which is overcoming ageism as a form of discrimination based on age. In contrast with most other types of discrimination, ageism is not always easy to detect and overcome because of its generally implicit nature. This paper investigates adopting storytelling as a method for detecting implicit ageism and proposes a co-design process that utilizes this method to better address older adults’ needs and requirements. The use of this method is discussed through two example case studies aimed at improving the design of assistive services and technologies for aging people. The findings from these case studies indicate that the proposed method can help co-design teams better identify possible implicit ageist biases and, by doing so, try to overcome them in the design process.

Keywords: design for aging; ageism; older adults; aging population; storytelling; assistive services; assisted living (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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