Healthy aging adviser: Designing a service to support the life transitions and autonomy of older adults

Abstract

A growing population of older adults is living alone, yet little is known about their need to maintain a sense of autonomy. In this study, an interdisciplinary team of design, nursing, and marketing researchers examined the patterns of older adults’ autonomy and proposed a service to assist their life transitions. The objectives include: (1) exploring the principle of autonomy as the core value of a service design case study for older adults; (2) identifying their daily living needs in relation to autonomy; and (3) improving aging adults’ autonomy by implementing a human-centred design approach to build a service. After conducting research with older adults living alone in an assisted living facility, we defined several service strategies: upfront preparation for life transitions, graduated preventive care, and desirable interactions with community. We designed a service named ‘Healthy Aging Adviser’ that supports the relational autonomy of older adults.