Retirement Living Options

Housing Options, Retirement Living

When it comes to retirement living options, the question of whether to stay at home or to move often looms large. Here are the things to consider so you make the right decision.

Joe Maxwell’s Universal Design Kitchen

miracle kitchen

This article describes a piece of universal design (a kitchen) from 83 yr old designer Joe Maxwell. When you read about Joe’s kitchen design below from the 1950’s you can’t help wondering why we don’t see more Universal Design in mainstream products.

Hands-on Workshop: Home Sensor Systems

homesensorresearchweb

We are running a workshop on Home Sensor Systems on Wed July 15th. It is designed to go a step beyond the recent book on this topic, and provide actionable, personalized, hands-on support to people wanting to decide whether they want one of these systems, and if so which one would be right for them.

Ideas for Apps for Seniors

Apps for Seniors

At a conference organized by San Francisco’s Institute on Aging, I ran an interactive “exploration”, in which we asked attendees to vote on “Senior Apps they Like“, or to submit ideas they have for “There should be an App for that“. We got quite a few interesting ideas, and this article reports the results of the session.

Lighted Magnifier: Read menus in dim light

Menu Reader: Hands Free LED Magnifing Pendant

Reading under poor lighting conditions is a common problem, not only for reading menus, but also for reading in bed, or seeing small type in a poorly lit space. What is needed is some type of lighted magnifier. There are four categories of solutions for this common problem. The pro’s and con’s of each solution are detailed below, as well as in the individual product listings we link to.

The Paradox of Good UX Design for Seniors

Design and seniors

Seniors report avoiding, or using in as stealth a manner as possible, technologies that would improve the quality of their lives — even enhance their safety — because they are associated with or specifically designed for the elderly. The paradox, then, for good UX design that addresses seniors’ needs is to do so without explicitly seeming to target the “old.”

Inventor Road Trip

Podna on tour

Earlier this month we invited the inventor of a new type of walker to come along to one of the Longevity Collective circle meetings and show the older adults members of our circle the prototype of her invention and get their feedback. It was pretty interesting. This article is about the experience.