Design for well-being: Addressing diverse challenges of aging through conceptual product service system proposals

This paper describes a postgraduate design course that explored how students might respond to diverse aging-related challenges through concept-level proposals. The course theme, ‘Age-Well’, invited students to consider how design can contribute not only to safety and accessibility, but also to older adults’ sense of purpose, autonomy, and connection. Self-determination theory (SDT) was introduced as a guiding framework, supporting students in identifying motivational needs and translating them into design features. Students worked in pairs to develop five distinct proposals addressing aspects of aging such as medication routines, memory loss, skill decline, and social isolation. Drawing on real-life personas and informed by seminar input from healthcare and design professionals, each project engaged with older adults’ lived experiences in different contexts, including home environments and community services. The paper discusses how SDT informed the design process and how three core needs (autonomy, competence, and relatedness) were interpreted and applied across the projects. The course provided evidence forhow SDT can lead to more nuanced and empathetic understandings of later life, and thus to new kinds of design solutions suited to older people. It also highlighted the potential for integrating design thinking and design education into broader conversations about aging-related wellbeing and inclusion.