Finding Common Ground with the Elders

Posted by Matt Cottam on July 11, 2008

We were in the second floor library—a simple room with two windows that face the river and an assortment of upholstered armchairs arranged in a wide semicircle. At the front of the room is a late model large screen television with four armed dining chairs lined-up like the front row at the movies. As I knelt there pulling tangles of colorful computer cables from my bag a tall thin octogenarian with neatly combed white hair watched on—he seemed calm—almost like he had confidence that I would find the right one and then know what to do with it.

David Sobel and I were at the Tockwotton assisted living home for our first shift of volunteering. Several weeks back we had decided as a team that volunteering in a variety of roles would serve us in two ways: a vehicle for our embedded ethnographic studies of elderly culture; and, as a means for building personal friendships with the residents and staff at Tockwotton which would allow us to share and film intimate thoughts and moments in the resident’s lives.

We were in the library for a one-hour event that we improvisationally titled “American Art History at the Turn of the Century”. David and I having studied art and design in college (at Brown and RISD respectively) are history enthusiasts and were both relieved and a little nervous as about ten residents filed in and negotiated the seating. Some needed to be closer to the TV so that they could see it—others wanted to be closer to David and me so they could hear us. Though the room now contained a variety of wheelchairs, walkers and canes, the audience was bright and attentive—hard to imagine how they must have perceived us as we launched Keynote on the laptop now patched into the TV that is used to playing one of the dog-eared VHS tapes from the shelf. In a slow, loud, best-behaved voice I started in on my presentation.

Mine was a racy story involving a powerful architect, a beautiful aspiring actress, a super-wealthy industrialist—complete with fame, fortune, love, sex and murder. I joked about us all being adults in the room and apologized in advance if I offended anyone— this got a laugh followed quickly by quiet as they waited for the next slide. I told the story of Stanford White and his romance with Evelyn Nesbit and ultimate demise at the hands of the jealous Harry K. Thaw. David followed with a lighter and equally welcomed talk on Norman Rockwell—a topic as safe as houses with this elderly American audience.  

Just as David began setting up his topic we hit a computer glitch making it impossible to open his presentation. After realizing that holding the book up wasn’t going to cut it with this many pairs of thick glasses in the room, we stumbled on a solution: my laptop has a small camera embedded in the top of the screen that can display live video. 

So, as David talked I held the Rockwell book facing my screen-cam and the paintings appeared on the television. A younger audience would have been annoyed at our lack of preparedness, though maybe impressed by our resourcefulness—this group didn’t seem to share our feeling for how clever we had been with this solution—for them we were just choosing to use the computer in overhead projector mode.

After we wrapped up, a few people asked questions while others shared stories—one woman left and returned with a small red Alphabet Book of Rockwell paintings. Another woman took my hand and thanked me for coming—she said that her daily life was “so dull”. The staff member holding the handles of the wheelchair looked a little embarrassed almost as to say “don’t they say the darndest things?” I had already spent several hours with this particular staff member and her interest in the happiness and well being of the residents—her real love for each of them—was clear and impressive. How could life not be dull? I asked myself. The people I had just met were living in a disconnect—their minds were still taking the stairs while their bodies required help to the elevator. Could any miracle of architecture, design or technology make life less dull? Clearly this dullness was a relative thing—Tockwotton is a warm and carefully run operation and they provide a packed calendar of activities ranging from animals visiting from the zoo to the Tiki Daiquiri hour that I am going to later this afternoon.

Our responsibilty in this Nursing Home of the Future program between now and October is not to to create design solutions, but rather to develop a platform for design. The platform will likely include scholars and practitioners of design, policy makers, staff and leadership of Tockwotton home, and industry partners looking to gain insights to the lives and needs of our aging population. We have an opportunity to try out product and service experiences in a dedicated “household” (several apartments linked by a common area and kitchen) within the new Tockwotton home now under construction.

We can use all of the strategies and tactics from decades of user-research including participatory design, ergonomics, and focus groups—allowing us to observe the usefulness, usability and appeal of new product and service concepts. Can any of this allow us to really grasp what it is like to have your perceptual and physical abilities drift apart? Is it possible to be objective as a documentarian or designer when it is so frightening yet tempting to imagine yourself in a later stage of life—while not being able to feel it at all? These questions won’t be answered anytime soon, but I am proud to be on this team, and glad to be spending the afternoon at Tiki hour with my friends at Tockwotton.