Abstract
This paper examines the use of photovoice, a participatory visual method, within a qualitative study exploring financial planning and pension engagement among mid-life and older adults from ethnic minority communities in the United Kingdom. Situated at the intersection of social research and design practice, the study invited participants to express their experiences of financial insecurity, ageing and the future through photography and narrative. The paper focuses not only on what was revealed but on how the creative method enabled participant-led storytelling and the translation of research into public and educational design outputs. Two key design outcomes emerged from the process: a pair of public exhibitions co-curated with postgraduate art and design students, and an educational board game on financial resilience, tested with Year 11 pupils at a local secondary school. Together, these outputs demonstrate how visual and participatory methods can move beyond data collection to actively shaping public dialogue and learning. The paper contributes to emerging conversations in design-led research on ageing, inequality and civic engagement. It highlights the potential of creative methodologies to reposition the designer as a facilitator of shared inquiry and social impact, where design becomes not just a means of representation but also of transformation.
Keywords
Photovoice; Participatory design; Ageing; Inequality
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.1224
Citation
Yin, Y., Mocnik, S., Akhtar, S.N., Vlachantoni, A.,and Generations, P.C.(2025) Lenses on later life: photovoice as a creative method for socially impactful design practice, in Chang, C.-Y., and Hsu, Y. (eds.), IASDR 2025: Design Next, 02-05 December, Taiwan. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.1224
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Track 10 - Design Practices & Impacts
Lenses on later life: photovoice as a creative method for socially impactful design practice
This paper examines the use of photovoice, a participatory visual method, within a qualitative study exploring financial planning and pension engagement among mid-life and older adults from ethnic minority communities in the United Kingdom. Situated at the intersection of social research and design practice, the study invited participants to express their experiences of financial insecurity, ageing and the future through photography and narrative. The paper focuses not only on what was revealed but on how the creative method enabled participant-led storytelling and the translation of research into public and educational design outputs. Two key design outcomes emerged from the process: a pair of public exhibitions co-curated with postgraduate art and design students, and an educational board game on financial resilience, tested with Year 11 pupils at a local secondary school. Together, these outputs demonstrate how visual and participatory methods can move beyond data collection to actively shaping public dialogue and learning. The paper contributes to emerging conversations in design-led research on ageing, inequality and civic engagement. It highlights the potential of creative methodologies to reposition the designer as a facilitator of shared inquiry and social impact, where design becomes not just a means of representation but also of transformation.