Today, half of the entire UK population is over 47 years of age; and in just ten years time, more than half of us will be over the age of 65. In a recent survey carried out by Age Concern/Help the Aged, 46% of over-65s believed they had been ignored in the technological scramble. The products and services they sought were either too complex to set up or use, or simply weren’t able to meet basic needs arising from failing eyesight, hearing, strength, dexterity and cognitive ability.
So, here we have something of a challenge for product developers: there’s an emerging market of people with real disposable income that within a decade will become fiscally of great significance. Yet numerous manufacturers have either barely started to address it, or have discounted it altogether.
The late Bernard Isaacs, founding director of the Birmingham Centre for Applied Gerontology, had a good aphorism for those manufacturers failing to get the message: “Design for the young and you exclude the old; design for the old and you include the young.” Of course, he was referring to ‘inclusive design’ and alluding to its market opportunities.
Last week, BT hosted a seminar in London, entitled Designs on a Bigger Market, which aired the concept of inclusive design before an audience comprised mostly of young designers, entrepreneurs and marketeers. It enjoyed some first-class presentations from speakers, including Age Concern’s Andrew Harrop, Cambridge University researcher Professor John Clarkson and Gus Desbarats (no stranger to the pages of DPA), chairman of one of our leading product design agencies, The Alloy.
But what exactly is inclusive design? The British Standards Institute defines it as “The design of mainstream products and/or services that are accessible to, and usable by, as many people as reasonably possible...without the need for special adaptation or specialised design.”
In many ways, those last nine words sum it up. Few people, in whatever age group, want the stigma of having to use a ‘special’ product that may highlight a disability or indicate to all and sundry that they have a sight, hearing or dexterity problem. Bernard Isaacs had it in a nutshell – the design must have almost universal appeal. But a good design idea is not enough; product developers have also to convince their superiors of the market worth of pursuing the inclusive design goal, as well as ensuring that they have good marketing strategies in place.
Given the venue of the seminar – the BT Tower – it was perhaps not surprising that the humble telephone was wheeled out as a good example of inclusive design. Even as far back as the days when the General Post Office held sway over our telephone network, handsets had more clearly readable dials and even lights to indicate an incoming call. In more recent times, the ‘Big-Button’ phone has proved to be a great success. Not only did it facilitate easier dialling for those with sight and dexterity issues, its ‘funky’ looks also appealed to a much wider - and younger - consumer group. The result: huge sales and a marketing coup de grace for BT. The Big-Button concept was subsequently applied to successive generations of BT cordless phones.
Working in conjunction with i-design, BT has co-developed an online resource for designers called the Inclusive Design Toolkit which will help organisations to begin integrating inclusive design into their product development processes. There are some very useful tools available on the site, including a vision and hearing impairment simulator, which allows designs to be tested against a range of user abilities. It is a good starting point for any organisation that is seriously contemplating embracing the concept of inclusive design.
As a group, the over-fifties have considerable consumer power; indeed, it accounts for more than forty per cent of annual consumer spending. This leaves open an obvious market targeted at the needs and interests of older people in sectors as varied as healthcare, financial services and leisure. By anticipating demand businesses will be preparing themselves for the future and adapting to the changing face of our population.
Les Hunt
Editor
Lies, damned lies and statistics?
Several DPA newsletter readers have questioned my population statistics in the foregoing article. Here are some of your responses:
You have a very good message (one which, as even a relatively technically savvy 50+ year old, I can concur). I fear that if people focus on the statistics this may blunt the message (I hope not in a similar way to the climate change saga).
The UK ONS shows a very different picture. This shows the 50th percentile to be between the ages of 38 and 42 over the next 25 years and the % over 65 varies between 15 and 21% over the same time period. Perhaps you are using the working population rather than the total population?
How does that work? If it’s half the population over 47 now and in 10 years more aged over 47 will die off than under that age and more youngsters are born, then potentially less than half will be over 57.
But at that time you suggest we will have more than half of us over 65, which is a smaller sector than the over 57 age group? Maybe we are forecasting a lot of over 65 immigration?
Regarding your editorial this week, “Inclusive design: facing a demographic challenge”, it would be interesting to know the source of your data because the numbers in the statements “Today, half of the entire UK population is over 47 years of age;” and “in just ten years time, more than half of us will be over the age of 65.”just didn’t sound right.
On the basis that the UK population is slowly but steadily increasing and that the additional people are generally due to people younger than 65 (i.e. mainly births plus immigrants and their families ) then from the definition of average the above statement would indicate that in 10 years time the average life expectancy (from birth) of Brit’s would be over 130 years (2x65), otherwise there would need to be many more people in each age group over 65 than under 65, but this would indicate a substantial reduction in population growth or a large influx of senior citizens, which as far as I am aware is not the case. Even with the current 50% of people over 47 years this would indicate an average life expectancy of 94, about 10 years more than it currently is.
The following UK government statistics seem to support my suspicions:
“Over the last 25 years the percentage of the population aged 65 and over increased from 15 per cent in 1983 to 16 per cent in 2008, an increase of 1.5 million people in this age group.” & “By 2033, 23 per cent of the population will be aged 65 and over compared to 18 per cent aged 16 or younger.”
The stats don’t give narrow age band statistics so theoretically, 50% over 47 years old is possible but it would mean that there would be twice as many people in each age band for years 47 to 65 as there is in years 17 to 47 which I’m fairly sure isn’t the case, this would also require a massive blip in the age distribution curve but the ‘>50% over 65 in 10 years’ is not supported and would be virtually impossible to engineer starting with the current situation.
The full data can be found here
However, numerical anomalies aside, I certainly agree with the general conclusions of the rest of the article.
My thanks to those who responded. The figure actually came from the UK government's Actuary's Department and probably refers to the working population - sorry! LH