Abstract
The ageing of the global population highlights the need to understand the implications of declining user capabilities and to help elders live full, autonomous lives. One of the poorly understood issues is that of packaging openability. The aim of this study is to develop an understanding of packaging openability from older Chinese people’s perspectives, so that packaging designers and manufacturers can address this issue effectively. A survey was conducted to rate the types of household packaging that consumers in the 60+ age group struggle with, covering opening gestures, coping strategies, attitudes towards packaging design and other related issues. The extent to which this group has difficulties when opening household products and packaging in connection with daily purchases was also discussed.
Keywords
packaging; openability; older adults; inclusive design
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2016.206
Citation
Ma, X., and Dong, H. (2016) ‘Difficult’ packaging for older Chinese adult, in Lloyd, P. and Bohemia, E. (eds.), Future Focused Thinking - DRS International Conference 2016, 27 - 30 June, Brighton, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2016.206
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
‘Difficult’ packaging for older Chinese adult
The ageing of the global population highlights the need to understand the implications of declining user capabilities and to help elders live full, autonomous lives. One of the poorly understood issues is that of packaging openability. The aim of this study is to develop an understanding of packaging openability from older Chinese people’s perspectives, so that packaging designers and manufacturers can address this issue effectively. A survey was conducted to rate the types of household packaging that consumers in the 60+ age group struggle with, covering opening gestures, coping strategies, attitudes towards packaging design and other related issues. The extent to which this group has difficulties when opening household products and packaging in connection with daily purchases was also discussed.