Our Understanding of Age Diversity in Design

So often, we get caught up in the present without realising how age catches up to all of us. Thankfully, there are clues that show how we age. They range from the nostalgia of old photos to the gradual deterioration of our bodily functions.

Yet the problem isn’t so much about our self-awareness that we are ageing because we are reminded based on our birthdays and the people around us. Instead, it is our lack of understanding of the varying generations around us.

The term “Millennials” can be considered a fairly new concept since authors Neil Howe and William Strauss first coined it in 1991. The word is usually associated with people born between 1981 and 1996, where the oldest of the cohort would be graduating at the start of the millennium.

To date, there are 7 generations of cohorts. 1. The Greatest Generation (GI Generation): Born 1901–1927 2. The Silent Generation: Born 1928–1945 3. Baby Boom Generation: Born 1946–1964 4. Generation X: Born 1965–1980 5. Millennial Generation or Generation Y: Born 1981–1996 6. Generation Z or iGen: Born 1997–2010 7. Generation Alpha: Born Between 2010–2024

Thanks to modern science and technology, our life expectancy has increased, to the point where there is an increasing likelihood for the oldest generations to co-mingle with the youngest of the generations. This is a truly remarkable feat, given that such thoughts would have been ridiculous a century ago.

Challenges in Designing for Different Generations

However, what’s also interesting is how each generation will have different experiences, behaviours, perspectives, and characteristics from one another. There can be two ways to look at this.

1. Put 7 people of different generations together in the same room at the same time period, and you will see different behaviours from the same experience.
2. Generations of the same age will also behave differently. In other words, a 60-year-old baby boomer is likely to behave differently from a 60-year-old millennial, or a 60-year-old generation alpha.

We can attempt to do a thought experiment to teleport any future versions of us, at 60 years old, back to the present with a time machine. Surely, that will inform a clear distinction between our older selves and the current older adults.

How each generation views work and play, life and death, parenting, and singlehood will differ drastically because of their life experiences. To date, there have been 2 world wars, but not all generations have been through them. Some generations have also experienced recessions at different eras, thus having different behaviours.

Even the most mundane of things can lead to variations among different generations. The same applies for design and technology too.

Read on: The original version of this article is on UX Collective.

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