What is it about?
We are all aging. And, by some measures of cognitive ability, we experience declines as early as when we turn 20 even as other cognitive abilities continue to improve through our 50’s and into our 60’s (and possibly beyond). The authors argue for a focus on aging as a process vs. (old) age as a state of life. Include people across a broad spectrum of adult life. We might hope to identify variations in information tool design that are better in general for everyone regardless of age but that especially support people as they age. This might happen through innovations that reduce the demands on cognitive facilities such as working memory, shown to be in decline for all of us as adults. Conversely, this might happen through better exploitation of facilities such as vocabulary or general experience –aspects of crystallized intelligence that are shown to improve with age. Such innovations provide general improvement for everyone, not just for older people.
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Why is it important?
Needs for supporting information and information tools change through the years of a person's adult life. Of special interest in the context of successful aging are innovations that are better for all adults but work even better for people as they age. To identify innovations that “age well”, begin by routinely sampling across a spectrum of adult ages, both in studies of current tool use (e.g., observations, interviews, surveys) and design alternatives. As a further step, cross age with other factors. Less formal methods involving forms of group deliberation can also elucidate age-related changes in the landscape of information need. A focus on the process of aging (vs. “old age”) is inclusive of people across the decades of their adult lives.
Perspectives
In most areas of life, we use different products, methods and approaches at different stages of our lives. For example, care products up to toothpaste are adapted to the needs of the aging physical body. These physical changes also affect our cognitive functions. However, not only negatively, while for example our fluid intelligence decreases, our crystalized intelligence increases until old age. The way we interact with our environment changes gradually and permanently. Why then do our information tools always remain the same? There is an acute need for action here. There are not only young people or young versus old people. There are all shades in between. We have to take this into account in research and product design.
Sascha Donner
Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin
We believe that technology should support how we live while we age, keeping in mind that the longer we live, the more information and content we accumulate, and the more we use information tools, the more experience we have as users. We have the expert heuristics from years and years of witnessing the technology evolution. So listen to the older generation generation and include them in user studies! Accounting for differing age groups of users should be a standard part of information tool design and testing rather than an afterthought or patch job for new software. So let‘s get away from the congno-normative focus on technology design, and adopt a critical standpoint to dismantle the broader ableist interests that are embedded but unseen in our technology design
Dr Bhuva Narayan
University of Technology Sydney
There is a need and a tremendous opportunity to include, more consistently, more systematically, the effects of aging in studies of information tool design and not just in studies whose primary purpose is to target the needs of older people. It’s about time.
Research Associate Professor Emeritus William Paul Jones
Let's consider the effects of aging in studies of information tool design. Across studies of personal information management tool design in general, not just in studies whose main purpose is to target the needs of older people within the focus of Personal Information Management (PIM) research. There is a need to assess the impacts that various information tools will have on our ability to live happily and function effectively. Of particular interest in the context of successful aging change in information tool design that is better for everyone regardless of age.
Dr. Vanessa Reyes
University of South Florida
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: It's about Time: Let's Do More to Support the Process of Aging (vs. the State of Being “Old”), April 2023, ACM (Association for Computing Machinery),
DOI: 10.1145/3544549.3582740.
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