Design Empowering Active Aging: A Resource-Based Design Toolkit

The aging population is often labelled as a social problem, with a focus on their functional decline. Design interventions for aging usually play a role in functional compensation, which may risk damaging older people’s agency. Therefore, it is necessary to reimagine aging and change the mindsets of designing for aging. Inspired by empowerment theories, this study regards older people as resources and active agents; they can address many of their issues and continue making contributions to society. Case studies were conducted to identify different means of empowerment. Four modes of design empowerment strategies were identified. A set of design tools based on older people’s resources and the empowerment modes was developed to help transfer knowledge into practice. A design workshop was organized to evaluate the toolkit; it suggests the positive impact of the toolkit on the participant designers’ understanding of, and responses to, aging.