Example design dissertation topic 7:

Trans-generational design: Redesigning the mobile phone for the over 70s – an investigative study.

Trans-generational design is, as Pirkl notes, ‘the practice of making products and environments compatible with those physical and sensory impairments associated with human aging and which limit major activities of daily living’ (1994, p.25). This dissertation looks at the mobile phone demands of consumers living in Winchester aged over 70, and suggests that a product whose design is forever getting slimmer and smaller needs to be rethought if it is to continue to appeal to this ageing demographic. Through interviewing and collating the results of 400 interviews (through the use of a tick box survey and quantitative analysis) this dissertation seeks to make a number of key design recommendations to the leading mobile phone manufacturers.

Suggested initial topic reading:

• Arning, K. and Ziefle, M. (2007). ‘Barriers of information access in small screen device applications: The relevance of user characteristics for a transgenerational design’, Universal Access in Ambient Intelligence Environments, Vol. 4397, pp.117-136.
• Cagan, J. and Vogel, C.M. (2007). Creating breakthrough products. Upper Saddle River, NJ: FT Press.
• Pirkl, J.J. (1994). Trans-generational design: Products for an aging population. New York: Van Nostrand.