A big step taken towards age-friendly and fashionable products

Smart textiles integrating technologies into everyday objects can support people’s independent living as they age. Driven by the goal of designing and delivering accessible, comfortable and fashionable dresses, shoes and sofa with smart textiles, the MATUROLIFE project run a series of co-creation workshops where more than 90 older participants across 9 countries expressed their needs, preferences, priorities and design ideas.

Older people’s needs and perceptions were explored through a two-stage workshop process, in which the participants’ various perceptions of “independence” and “autonomy” were developed into individual product specifications. The first stage of this process enabled to define preliminary design directions, while in the second stage functionalities were prioritized and converted into ideas and design. This provided an excellent foundation for our ongoing design development in close collaboration with designers, technologists and material scientists.

AGE will continue to consult with older adults and wider stakeholders as the products develop. Stay tuned for discovering the final prototypes!

We want to use this opportunity to thank all our workshop participants for their great motivation and valuable contributions during the process, and we hope to see them involved in the next round of validation of the work done so far.

For more information on this project, please contact Sandra.degelsegger@age-platform.eu and Ilenia.gheno@age-platform.eu