Design Of An Age-appropriate Generative Toolkit Based On Co-design

With the aging population becoming one of the most important social trends in the 21st century,how to achieve active aging has become a global issue.The aging industry has shown great potential and market opportunities,while also posing challenges to the design industry.In addition to the inherent cognitive differences between designers and users,society’s stereotypes and negative perceptions of the elderly have further widened the gap between existing product services and the true needs of elderly users.Co-design brings a positive technical approach to aging design by introducing a unique perspective from users.The co-design method is used to introduce the elderly as users into the design process,discover their real pain points and needs in the way of design participation,collect their experience and ideas,and guide the more people-oriented service design of aging products.Generative toolkit,as a promoting tool for collaborative generation activities,is a crucial part of co-design method.In recent years,more and more designers have begun to use co-design method to help solve aging design problems,but no guiding technical method paradigm has been formed yet.In order to improve the efficiency of collaborative research on aging-appropriate issues and reduce resource investment in the pre-preparation of co-design,this study will focus on the development of reusable generative toolkit design to support the participation of older adults in co-design.Guided by the theory of co-design,this study designed and produced an age-appropriate generative toolkit based on existing design tools and methods,and combined the functional characteristics and demand concerns of the elderly,and constructed a corresponding co-generation process framework for the creative production of the elderly in co-design activities.The framework consists of three stages:user information mining,pain point demand analysis,and creative idea generation.The tools placed under the framework follow the principles of physicality,ease of use,importance,guidance,openness,and constraint,and include various props for inspiring participants.The toolkit is portable and can be used repeatedly by designers in different design research activities.Finally,the study evaluated the acceptance and effectiveness of the toolkit among elderly people by using it in co-design workshops.This study aims to reorganize the collaborative design process methods based on the cognitive characteristics and values of the elderly,and proposes a tool method suitable for elderly collaborative participation in design activities,providing a certain reference for exploring active aging design.