Some say we enter this population (#silvereconomy #ageing #aging #elderly) categorization when reaching 50 years-old, some others take the average retirement timing (like 65 years-old) - usually for statistical purposes.
From a sales/ marketing point of view, this offers interesting indications (geolocation, TV shows, radio shows,...) but necessitates a deeper level of "subjective" granularity.
At ubiz.io you enter this category when your body starts showing limitations, impacts your daily life & requires you to use adapted devices or services.
Following subjective indicators about our persona :
when your senses start to fade down as 50% of those aged 75 & older, making people repeating themselves louder, neighbors asking you to diminish the volume of your TV set, your smartphone difficult to use...
when you systematically neglect those high heels you loved, fearing lack of balance
when you start getting scared to enter your bathroom and wash yourself,
when leaning yourself to reach that pan in the kitchen is painful
when you start confusing names and concepts
when you prefer to not drive at night anymore
when regular housekeeping (laundry, cleaning, ironing) becomes tiring adventures
when someone in a fully crowded bus insists to give you his/her seat
when you don't realize you start repeating yourself
when you start to see less of your friends, because they go away or because they live far away
when the doctor comes and visits you, instead of the opposite
...
There are no miracles, we'll all go through this step in life - some might go through this happily surrounded with family & grandchildren (which might be more with taking care of grandchildren because parents working night and day), but majority will need extra-support in order to keep this cherished independence. Swapping this autonomy for a specialized full service senior residence is a step that everyone wants to be the latest possible, including insurance & public healthcare institutions. Tech can bring solutions that make everyone aligned - even if the older you get, the less flexible you become towards new technologies. In other words, these tech devices need to be useful but "invisible" - no operating system reboot/update, no training to be required, a 5 sense adapted device for older people, a multifunction & adapted minimalist design. Your end-customer in this case here is indeed not your end-user. A few examples of these invisible tech ?
Alexa - or any similar voice companions from any corporations - is a quite good example of a multifunction minimalist design adapted device, except ... if the user is hearing impaired. Other smartwatches (like expensive Apple) offering functionalities that automatically identify falls, or pulse rate - even if apparently successful within a still "active" older age range - start to become more complex for less active individuals (digital screen, small fonts, required training in order to use other functionalities, potential system updates...) whose autonomy start to slide away.
At Ubiz.io, we give extra-care about all these features when deciding to accelerate or not a startup, to provide sales/ distribution expertise & open our business development / #bizdev network. If your end-user product / service has a positive impact / business case in helping people keeping their autonomy, better you have a strong design process.
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