Thought Bytes...
November 2002

Getting Older

It happened at about 6:15 on October 19. A group had gathered to go from the Banff Centre into town to have dinner. We were walking along and introducing ourselves. The youngish fellow beside me introduced himself as Patrick Jordan and said that he was with Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh. We continued the conversation when it suddenly dawned on me - He was to be one of keynote speakers at the ACE national conference and the presenter of the workshop I had signed up for on Universal Design the next day.

How could that be!?! How could the esteemed and renowned Pat Jordan be younger than me???? With the number of books and articles he has published, I expected a full (or partial) head of grey hair and a healthy set of wrinkles. At that point I realized that I had reached middle age. Attending workshops on design for an aging population took on a whole new meaning. It was ME that we were designing for.

The litany of body changes with aging is too long to list. And too depressing. Sure, from a physical perspective, I have begun to notice a difference (namely that it is harder to control my weight...). Yet, despite having chronologically reached middle age, mentally I still think I am about 26 - fresh out of grad school and bursting with ideas of how to change the world.

The interesting thing about design that I learned is that I already choose products for everyday living that promote usability. I buy large barreled pens and "Good-Grip" knives. I look for products that reduce grip forces and pressure points. I increase the zoom on the screen so that I don't squint to see the characters and wear reading glasses at night to take the strain off my eyes. I put lever door handles on all my exterior doors so that I can open them with less twisting and hand pressure. I even replaced the faucet in my kitchen with one that has a hose built into it so that I don't have to lift and carry full pots of water out of the sink and over to the stove.

Universal design is not just about design for the aging, but design to facilitate performance. The easier it is to do a task, the more likely you are to do it. Office chairs are a classic example. The harder you have to work to adjust the chair, the less often you will make the adjustments to personalize it to your own needs. The same principle applies to the toaster - if it is difficult to push the lever down or the toast always turns out burnt, you will just stop using it.

As the word "universal" implies, universal design is about designing to make products useable by everybody. By studying the needs of our older population (and our marginalized populations) we can create products that make it easier for young and old and everyone in between to use. The more we insist on using these products in the home and workplace, the easier it will be for all to maintain a healthy, independent and productive life.

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