The design of home appliances for young and old consumers

The design of home appliances for young and old consumers

Imprint
Delft University Press
Editor
Freudenthal, A.
Pub. date
January 1999
Pages
280
Binding
softcover (reprinted 2008)
ISBN
978-90-4071-755-0
Subject
Housing, Urban Policy & Urban Studies
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When designing products to be handled at home, in a professional situation or in the public domain, designers ought to base their choices of technical properties on the capacities, habits and preferences of the user group. Although there is a continuing increase in the grey sector of society, design-relevant data on elderly users are almost non-existent. This book attempts to narrow this gap in gerontechnology: product design for the elderly. If such products would be designed in a way that takes into account the diminishing human capacities of the elderly, younger users would benefit as well; ease of use could be improved in new product design. Transgenerational design guidelines are needed for this purpose. A set of about a hundred new guidelines for product development and the design of product manuals are presented. In this volume, methodological issues of user-centered design are tackled and essential product properties are described, matching users’ strategies for product use and cognitive aspects, such as learning, and aspects of perception, for three age groups. Relating backgrounds, including aging human capacities and changes in design methodology, are obtained from empirical research and supported by a literature survey. The guidelines and their backgrounds indicate how user problems encountered with many of the current home appliances come about.

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