Chuck Nyren and Joseph Coughlin Take It To the Next Level

I've been blogging about MIT AgeLab andDr. Joseph Coughlin since 2006:

 MIT AgeLab

Bookmarked Brains

Fast Company Names Joseph Coughlin to Top 100 List

An excellent post yesterday:

Fashion, Function & Fun: Product Design Demands of Older Baby Boomer Consumers 
Too many designers, marketers and concerned observers have declared universal design to be the universal answer to meet the new needs of the growing numbers of older baby boomer consumers. While not altogether incorrect, they are woefully incomplete in their hopes and claims ... Even if an older consumer can easily use a technology, they must value its functionality before investing the money, time to learn, let alone adopt a new way to do tasks that they may already achieve with 'tried and true' methods.

This mirrors a few things I've said over the years. The pull quote from the cover of my book, first edition published in early 2005:

"It will be the Baby Boomers who will be the first to pick and choose, to ignore or be seduced by leading-edge technology marketing. There's a simple reason for this. We have the money to buy this stuff. Experts say we'll continue to have the money for at least the next twenty years. Write us off at your own peril.

The full article:

http://advertisingtobabyboomers.blogspot.com/2010/08/universal-design-as-beginning-not-end.html