Blog 2/3 — Healthy Ageing by design
Design thinking is critical to developing innovative and desirable healthy ageing products and services.
Julian Grice and John Mathers have been working with the Healthy Ageing Challenge to develop ways in which design thinking can be embedded into Trailblazer bids to increase impact and de-risk projects. Having described the impact of design at the Trailblazer launch, they explain how design thinking is key to the development of innovative and desirable solutions that help everyone age healthily.
In this, the second of three blogs, we discuss another key question Trailblazers need to consider:
· Why is design thinking key to the development of successful Healthy Ageing products and services
Why is design thinking key to the development of successful Healthy Ageing products and services?
Global success stories that have transformed lives such as Apple, Google and Amazon have all been design led, placing their users at the heart of their businesses. These global brands have pioneered new services and the healthy ageing market presents an opportunity for services to disrupt markets, change attitudes and behaviours and span generations by being accessible to everyone.
The healthy ageing challenge affects everyone crossing cultural boundaries and borders so the opportunity for the UK to be recognised as the leaders in global Age Tech is tangible. Across the EU, there were 199m people aged over 50 (39% of the total population) who consumed €3.7 trillion of goods and services in 2015.
Our research has identified 6 key themes driving the design ambition for the “ageing-well” market
1. Think big, think positive because this is a moment for entrepreneurs to be brave and bold
2. Understand users of the future because it’s their needs and wants that will drive adoption
3. Embed design in impact evaluation because demonstrating users’ commitment grows trust and use
4. Adopt a joined-up approach because leveraging the ecosystem will accelerate system-wide solutions
5. Build on your ability to iterate because users accelerate continuous improvement
6. This has to be revolution because technology provides the opportunity to take big leaps forward
The healthy ageing market opportunities are diverse and can be grouped into 7 key areas that are inter-connected and significant in the impact they can deliver. Propositions that deliver compelling products and services are a challenge that will demand disruptive design thinking blending ingenuity, inspiration and pragmatism.
The power of design is that it transforms something users need into something they want, that in turn grows markets and leverages greater investment. The key is not to design for the older market, but to develop “ageing well” ideas than span generations so adoption at scale by different users will spread ideas and rapidly grow new markets.
“How successfully we age depends on our interactions with the spaces, artefacts and communications around us. That is why design is so central to active and healthy ageing. Access to work, safer homes, inclusive neighbourhoods — all depend on raising the bar in design.”
Jeremy Myerson, Helen Hamlyn Professor of Design, Royal College of Art
What is design thinking and how can it help Trailblazers?
Design thinking is recognised as a strategic management tool, evidenced by global management consultancies acquiring leading service design firms and valuations of design led UK and Silicon Valley tech firms out-performing the market.
However there is a danger around design thinking. Many businesses worry about what ‘design’ is, don’t know how to work with designers to get the best from them and see design as a cost rather than an investment.
Brand owners who are fixated with their products rather than their users need to u-turn their views. All around us are failing products looking for an audience and one of the challenges the Healthy Ageing sector faces is that without design being integral, it too will develop technology-led rather human-led products or services.
It’s important to think about these four Design Thinking principles:
1. Truly understand and empathise with your users
2. Iterate rapidly … to test, learn, move on, pivot, re-define or fail fast
3. Bring your idea to life in a simple and visual way that helps people imagine the intangible
4. Understand that collaboration and co-design produce better end results
A proven model that enables co-creation and iteration is the Double Diamond methodology, initially created by Design Council and now widely adopted, that we’d encourage Trailblazers to adopt for their projects.
We’re on the cusp of a transformative era for businesses, largely driven by the digital economy where users who demand high quality experiences become advocates through rating systems such as Trustmark. On the flip side brands that fall short of users expectations will tell the world it’s not up to scratch, in an instant!
“We need design thinking to be in the DNA of projects and we need to be addressing the “what if” rather than the what is.”
Lynne Corner, Director, Voice — National Innovation Centre for Ageing
Full details of stage one trailblazer applications can be found at: https://www.ukri.org/innovation/industrial-strategy-challenge-fund/healthy-ageing/
For further information contact: John Mathers on john.mathers2@btinternet.com or Julian Grice on julianmpgrice@gmail.com
