The New Old

"The New Old" is the preliminary working title for my diploma project at AHO, Oslo. The project will be done in collaboration with Interaction Design Lab, Milano.

The project will revolve around the new culture that retired people will live within in the next decades. They will have a completely new set of habits and knowledge about technology, and will be more prone to use it on a normal everyday basis than today`s retired, but not only that; they can also be part of a new market group asking a new set of specially designed features from products that could help advance the way we look at interactions with technology. It could also change the way we interact across age barriers.

Other preliminary working titles are; `NonnoTechnology`, `GoOld` or `How to get Stefano to stop smoking`...

I will start by making the basis for a future scenario, involving;

- research on future technologies for the next 10 to 15 years, in order to attain a realistic knowledge base for the technology that will be used by the target group for this project.(this I do also taking into consideration that many of tomorrow`s users will be more prone to accept today`s technology and interfaces than tomorrow`s).

- a three axis diagram showing which type of interfaces are accepted by which age groups in which of these three cultures: Norway, Italy and Japan. These are cultures with great differences in many aspects of their social framework, but having lived in all of them, I also know many similarities. I wish to draw on my experiences for this project and try and incorporate this knowledge in the base scenario.

- interviews with members of the target group; that is people of adult age today, who will be forced to consider their future as retired, and what they imagine their lives will be like based on their knowledge and interests of today.

- trend analysis based on today`s research of social systems and social framework in the main three different cultures of this research.

This will form a basis for a future scenario into which I will project a product design concept. This product could be based on social interaction between elderly, physical activity or play, emphasising a healthy look on this social group and considering a new lifestyle for the future old.

NExt.. Progress Plan.