CSCS: Council of Senior Centers and Services of NYC, Inc.

We've come a long way since the early days

We are immersed in a technology that has been tailored towards youth. Focusing on seniors and accessibility will improve the design of these digital devices and make their interfaces truly user friendly.

In the beginning, computers were mysterious entities hidden away at research labs, top universities and large corporations, and attended to by a select group of highly trained technologists. Huge and awe inspiring, the machines were capable of performing amazing tasks but required obscure, complex codes (along with arcane mystical incantations) to work.

When the years of the great turbulence arrived openings were made by the longhairs, young “radical techno-priests,” determined to unleash this computational power and have it directly interact with the masses. Contrary to the prevailing wisdom they placed smaller machines in the hands of children to study the possibilities in this emerging untamed force. Through their work, a new paradigm, the graphical user interface or GUI (pronounced gooey), was created to assist in human/machine interactions.

Propelled by the explosive growth in the machines’ raw processing power, GUI made a vast and exciting range of previously inconceivable functions available to all. Children grew up accustomed to intuitive and easy to use interfaces and became adept at using and extending the technology. Money rapidly flowed to finance new products designed with youth in mind.

As we entered the new millennium, all aspects of society were deeply impacted, but the elders felt abandoned. While some were able to acclimate themselves to the new technologies, most found them confusing, their difficulty was a source of frustration and bewilderment to members of other generations who reconciled themselves through the dismissive metaphor “you can’t teach and old dog new tricks.”

As the first decade of the 21st century came to a close, a growing number of technologists and senior advocates reiterated the efficacy of using a generational approach to expand computing capabilities. However, instead of focusing on children, their mantra was “Keep seniors in mind for intelligent design.” They pointed out that rapid advances in speech recognition, GPS and touch screen technologies, should make it easier for everyone to effectively interact with personalized devices and that in fact, the better it could work for seniors, the more superior the product.

Providing computerized assistance in the car was an obvious realm where “senior friendly” support technology quickly took hold. Internet based videophones placed in homes allowed seniors to stay connected with family, friends and medical providers. Handheld screens provided a user-friendly interface to Bluetooth earphones and hearing aids improved sound quality of both in-person and telephone based interactions.

By 2018, the media began speaking of “senior friendly design” being the harbinger of the “Golden Age of Aging.” Concurrently, advances in the understanding of biological systems, genetics and nanotechnology made significant inroads into mitigating many of the hardships historically afflicting the elderly.

The growth in technologies helping seniors stay “connected” and able to better resist the forces of physical and emotional isolation came online just as the baby boomer generation entered its senior years. Despite the dire earlier predictions of financial or environmental collapse, society continued to muddle along and many of these people enjoyed long and comfortable lives. “Senior friendly design” became part of a broader approach to ensure that “intelligent devices” developed for consumers were in fact smart enough to be used by all.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 12th, 2008 at 10:05 am and is filed under Senior Friendly Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.