The Lifespan Design Challenge with Patricia Moore.
How Patricia Moore, a pioneering American female Industrial Design leader, reframed design for safety and accessibility.
Design for all — a phrase we often hear in our industry more often than not, but not too many product owners get to the bottom of what it means when designing for people. Well, this woman pushed empathic research to the limits.
In 2000, she was selected by a consortium of news editors and organizations as one of the 100 Most Important Women in America.
A Hero
Patricia Moore has been recognized by ID Magazine as one of the “40 most Socially Conscious Designers” in the world. She is an American industrial designer, gerontologist (social scientist of the aging), author, educator, and design thought leader.
Patricia Moore earned her bachelor’s degree from Rochester Institute of Technology. In 1974, Moore was the only female industrial designer at the renowned Raymond Loewy International design offices in New York City.
At work, Patricia would often challenge her (male) colleagues to how people with arthritis would use certain products, and they would respond, “Patricia, we don’t design for those people!”.
Frustrated from not being heard by male co-workers and designers at the firm, Patricia undertook a massive project, one that earned her a place not just in the history of design, but in the history of American cultural studies.
Patricia Moore was driven by pushing design further: “As long as they were redesigning a refrigerator door or a can opener, she argued, why not rethink it with arthritis sufferers in mind?”
In 1979, 26-years old Patricia empathized with senior citizens on American streets by becoming one of them. She impersonating an 85-year old woman.
Patricia hired a Saturday Night Live makeup artist who helped her achieve and embody the aging woman look. She dressed her grandmother’s old wardrobe, and made herself over as nine different women in their 80s.
To push a step further, Patricia physically channeled this remarkable creative energy by adding prosthetics, wearing foggy and thick eye-glasses that significantly distorted her vision. She made uncomfortable shoes and had difficulty walking in and plugs for her ears to distort her hearing.
It was key to reduce all natural capacities as someone 26 years of age. Not just in character but in form, make up, and dress.
She created nine different personas which she would rotate, including a homeless woman and a very wealthy woman in order to reflect on how other aspects influenced her experiences.
“Patricia was utterly dismayed at some of the treatment she received, including being attacked by a gang that left permanent injuries.”
She spent more than three years touring 116 cities in America and Canada, taking the bus, shopping, walking the streets, responding to an environment as an 80-year old woman.
In an interview, Patricia stated: “I blurred my vision, reduced my hearing, and altered my posture and range of motion. With the use of canes, walkers, and a wheelchair, I was able to approximate all different levels of reduced mobility.
I was prepared for the physical difficulties, but not for my own emotions that resulted from others’ dismissal, cruelty, attitudes, and actions. On one occasion I was even attacked by a gang of boys on an isolated street, mugged, beaten, and left for dead. I still suffer from some of those injuries.”
Life in Design
She warns today’s industrial design students to resist the myth that a fancy job at a big firm is the pinnacle of career success.
“That’s boring”, she says, “an outdated goal”. “We should be thrilled that the terrible economy has turned all our received notions inside out.’’
Opportunities are everywhere now, especially in places that weren’t previously considered domains of design. Design has morphed into the cornerstone of equity, culture, and socialization. It’s about bringing resources to people who don’t have them.”
Learn Empathy
Fast forward to October 7th, 2017, I was at a tech conference in Glendale, California, listening in on one of the talks. I usually make it my goal to attend three (or two) industry conferences every year to learn about designers who care and make a difference in this world. I never tire from an inspirational rush.
That evening in 2017, Patricia Moore came up to the historic Alex Theatre stage with a radiant smile ready to talk about the boys she worked with back in the day in a male-dominant field.
Patricia Moore gave a speech that day in the that changed my entire vision of UX and the true meaning of empathy. To empathize means to feel and understand what the person in front of you is going through. By walking on the streets as a senior citizen, Patricia noticed how they were filled with people who had no patience or tolerance for someone her age.
And it didn’t help that the facilities she used as senior citizen were not designed for her age with zero accessibility and safety codes.
Patricia Moore pushed for accessibility in the modern home from the way we navigate in our kitchens, to how we open our refrigerators, peel potatoes, basically all the services that were (and still are) causing women — naturally more than men — harm in the kitchen.
Patricia Moore continues to fight for what is right in sharing with the world her design-thinking process. For more about her work please watch this vide
Thank Patricia for many well-designed products such as OXO Smart-Grip potato peelers that feel “comfy in the hands of both kids and grandparents.”
More importantly, you should thank her for her contribution to Universal Design which is an approach to design that considers every ability, age and walk of life.
Patricia Moore is considered a founding mother of Universal Design. This approach to design is also known as Inclusive DesignInclusive Design. Patricia’s early experiences, which fueled her passion for Universal Design, is an interesting story.
“Design has morphed into the cornerstone of equity, culture, and socialization. It’s about bringing resources to people who don’t have them …..The power of design is to look at each individual, their home, their community, and the infinite small things that make for success or failure of interaction in those realms.” Patricia Moore, Glendale Tech Week, California, 2017.
