Designing with older car drivers: seeking out aspirations and needs.

Older adults are increasingly being recognised as an important and growing consumer market, however they appear reticent in adopting new technologies. One factor contributing to this is that their needs are poorly understood and products are thus poorly specified. Within the context of driving as a socially valuable skilled behaviour we applied a participatory design approach to engage with older people as valued design partners.
This paper examines different strategies for involving older people as experts in their own domain, developing a better understanding of their needs and aspirations and empowering them within the design process. This research took account of new developments in car design and opportunities for intelligent driver assistance systems to support driver safety. The findings indicate that older car drivers responded well to the opportunity to identify their needs and to evaluate prototypes and novel technologies. The use of novel technologies particularly supported improved understanding of skilled behaviours and mismatches with the technology. These evaluative activities when framed as part of the early stages of the design process offer important opportunities to enhance understanding of latent and implicit needs of older adults which can inform and refine design requirements.