No. 248 Generation Grey

Design für die jungen Alten

Senior citizens, golden-agers, baby boomers… whatever you like to call them, the ‘old’ people today are the hippies, the beatniks, the punks, the rockers, the mods and the ravers of yesterday. They were the first teenagers, the inventors of youth, the rebels without a cause and they are not about to take old age lying down either. Generation Grey are the old young, they are more active and more economically powerful than ever before. They have needs and they have demands and they have a voice. In the West many over 60s are wealthier, healthier, more active and more involved than their children. They don’t want to be a burden, they want to stay independent, stay in the game and keep on keeping on. But the next big wave of baby boomers will soon be old and, likely as not, financially weaker than the current old timers – they will also probably live longer, which means they will spend more than half of their lives being ‘old’. Design for Generation Grey is not about telephones with big buttons, it is about empowerment: How do we design for Generation Grey?