Abstract
Design for older adults in Latin America remains strongly shaped by deficit-based and assistentialist assumptions that reduce aging to decline. Grounded in empowerment-oriented and resource-based design, this study explores how empowerment values can reframe the ideation of solutions for older people. Workshops conducted in five Colombian cities, supported by the Empowerment Nodes tool, enabled the identification of value expressions often overlooked in traditional design approaches. The findings culminated in the Empowerment Framework for Aging Design, a three-layered model composed of seven Silver Goals, fourteen Empowerment Values, and thirty-seven Enhancers, each paired with limiting counterparts that reveal how ageist paradigms subtly persist in design practice. The framework provides designers with a practical and reflective structure for generating situated, inclusive, and agency-oriented solutions. By grounding value construction in a Global South perspective, this study challenges dominant narratives of decline and expands the representational scope of aging in design.
Keywords
empowerment values, aging design, Global South, value-based design
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.354
Citation
Gómez, J., González, M., and Ramírez, M. (2026) Empowerment for Aging Design: A Framework to reframe the design of solutions for Older Adults in the Global South, in Simeone, L., Gray, C. M., Verhoeven, A., de Götzen, A., Bakırlıoğlu, Y., Zohar, H., Stead, M., and Buwert, P. (eds.), DRS2026: Edinburgh, 8–12 June, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.354
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Empowerment for Aging Design: A Framework to reframe the design of solutions for Older Adults in the Global South
Design for older adults in Latin America remains strongly shaped by deficit-based and assistentialist assumptions that reduce aging to decline. Grounded in empowerment-oriented and resource-based design, this study explores how empowerment values can reframe the ideation of solutions for older people. Workshops conducted in five Colombian cities, supported by the Empowerment Nodes tool, enabled the identification of value expressions often overlooked in traditional design approaches. The findings culminated in the Empowerment Framework for Aging Design, a three-layered model composed of seven Silver Goals, fourteen Empowerment Values, and thirty-seven Enhancers, each paired with limiting counterparts that reveal how ageist paradigms subtly persist in design practice. The framework provides designers with a practical and reflective structure for generating situated, inclusive, and agency-oriented solutions. By grounding value construction in a Global South perspective, this study challenges dominant narratives of decline and expands the representational scope of aging in design.