RML: Extreme Makeover DML Edition: Rethinking designs for younger and older users

Most new consumer technologies are designed for the 18- to 49-year-old set. But when a product strikes success across this market, it inevitably reaches the hands of both younger and older users. To be sure, this spillover has positive implications for children and senior citizens alike, as new technologies offer new opportunities for learning, communication, productivity, and play, regardless of age. However, given the rapid rate at which such penetration occurs, there's little time to redesign these popular platforms or the media they deliver in ways that best support their "unintended" users' developmental stages, needs, interests, and lifestyles. Too often, we see children and seniors failing to reap the maximum benefit from new technologies as a result. 

This panel will bring together representatives from academia, advocacy, and industry to highlight efforts taking place in these sectors to optimize popular platforms and media for younger and older users. Some are conducting careful usability research and revamping hardware, software, and/or content so these media can be more meaningfully experienced by younger/older users. Others are appropriating existing technologies for younger/older users in ways never imagined by their original inventors.

Jeff Makowka, Senior Strategic Advisor in the Thought Leadership Group at AARP, advocates for better design of consumer electronics for users of all ages. His "Design for All" campaign aims to lower barriers to use, raise adoption rates, and generally make things easier to use.

Allison Druin, Director of the Human-Computer Interaction Lab at the University of Maryland, has worked with Google to investigate how its popular search engine is used by children as young as age 7, and influence adjustments to the tool's interface so that young children can be more successful searchers.

Sirius Thinking's Cynthia Chiong will share findings from a study that compared how parents and preschoolers read e-books versus how they read print books together. Findings from this research will be used to design e-books that better support learning and conversation between parents and children.

Through a cross-sectoral partnership, Nokia Research Center’s Rafael “Tico” Ballagas worked with the Joan Ganz Cooney Center to design Story Visit, a Skype-based storybook reading device that connects grandparents and grandchildren in real-time co-reading activity.

Each panelist will have 12 minutes to address the following questions in the context of their redesign project:
- What event inspired their need to undertake this redesign project?
- What does their redesign process entail?
- What outcomes and impacts have you witnessed or do you anticipate?

In the remaining 40 minutes of the session, discussant Lori Takeuchi (Joan Ganz Cooney Center) will engage panelists and audience members in a conversation about the important tensions between what we think we knew about design for younger and older audiences, and the reality of digital media use in the lives of these users. We will also discuss the cultural, institutional, and other forces that make this work difficult, as well as the strategies and processes that panelists and participants have found effective in overcoming these obstacles.