Blog
Entries by Jeremy Myerson
(21 entries)
What is the Reality of Home Working for Older People?
After the global pandemic there has been a general view that has gone largely unchallenged. It’s that the rise of flexible working has basically been good news for older professional workers....
Concept and Conspiracy: The 15-minute City in the Spotlight
Older people clearly have much to gain from the model of the ‘15-minute city’. Research suggests they can more easily pop out to the shops, find fresh food or access health services on ...
Expanding Age Problems Require Expanding Design
Designing for an ageing population has become so familiar in recent years that it can be hard to remember a time when it was not a mainstream practice and positioned only at the margins of research...
Why the sound of birdsong might help with hearing loss
Over the course of conducting design research into the needs of an ageing society, I have inevitably been involved in a number of studies that address sight and hearing loss. These projects have va...
Will the hybrid model work for older employees?
Two years on from the start of the global pandemic, the world of work is still going through convulsions caused by the great lockdown of offices in every city you could name. The story today i...
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Extinct: the things that become obsolete before we do
As most of us alive today are destined to live longer than ever before thanks to advances in medical science, one of the unforeseen consequences of such longevity is that many of the familiar manuf...
Changing parameters of inclusive design
Exactly 20 years ago, I was involved in a landmark project at the Royal College of Art with retail giant B&Q to develop a range of low-cost, lightweight, easy-to-use power tools that would make...
Sitting down to stereotypes about ageing
Does the design of everyday things inadvertently reinforce stereotypes around ageing? Does the imagery in today media-rich environment put up barriers around older people rather than reducing stigm...
Will the roaring twenties leave a legacy?
Even as the world’s woes mount up in these bleakest of times, there is a narrative emerging in which various new types of technology will ride to the rescue. This narrative has a name –...
Ageing in America 40 years on
Forty years ago, the industrial designer Pattie Moore conducted a daring piece of social research. Aged 26 and working in New York at the famous Raymond Loewy design studio, she decided to find out...
Will a rethink on offices benefit older workers?
As the great pandemic of 2020 infiltrates every corner of our lives, there is one place perhaps more than any other that has been affected. This is the office, the defining building type of the 20t...
Leveraging design expertise for an ageing society
Two uncontested facts about the UK: first, we have an ageing population that can be especially vulnerable in a public health crisis; second, we have one of the world’s largest and most advanc...
Go green and get moving - healthy cities at a crossroads
When cities get it right in terms of planning and design for health, chief among the beneficiaries are older people. We all recognise what an urban environment that supports better health looks and...
Ageing, fashion and health
Why doesn’t the fashion industry pay more attention to the needs and aspirations of older people? This has been a regular cry for as long as I have been studying the dynamics between ageing a...
Four futures of work
What is the future for older people in the UK workplace as the British economy grapples with rapid technological change? How will the introduction of automation and AI have an impact on extended wo...
Has the Bauhaus aged well?
The 100th anniversary of the founding of the Bauhaus – the legendary German design school widely acknowledged to be the fountainhead of modern design and architecture – is currently bei...
FLEX: the quality required from housing for older people
At a time when young people are struggling to get a foot on the housing ladder and there is a fierce debate going on about intergenerational fairness and finding a place to live, it is hard to make...
Qualified Self – rethinking the Quantified Self movement for older people?
It is now widely accepted that having real-time data on what we eat, how much we exercise and how we sleep may be able to help us manage our health and wellbeing. We’ve become accustomed t...
When will we develop global products to support older people?
About the Author Jeremy Myerson holds the Helen Hamlyn Chair of Design at the Royal College of Art and is a Visiting Fellow, Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, University of Oxford Desp...
Robots and ageing: a design dilemma
In designing the next generation of products and services to enhance the experience of later life and allow people to live independently for longer, there are two diametrically opposed design appro...
Through a Design Lens: Exploring Eight Key Challenges of Ageing
When it comes to thinking about how successfully we might manage the future of an ageing society in the UK, it quickly becomes apparent that designers have a key role to play in reshaping the produ...