The Solution Problem

The hardest part of building technology for seniors is not building the technology. It is finding a solution they will accept.

We have been working on DAR.WIN for four years. In those four years we have talked to hundreds of seniors. We have sat at their kitchen tables and asked them about their lives, their homes, their routines, and what they think about technology. We have asked what they like, what they hate, and what they will tolerate.

The pattern is the same every time.

The smartwatch is in a drawer. The pendant is on the dresser. The camera is taped over or unplugged. The voice assistant is unplugged because it kept talking when nobody asked it to. The fall detector was tried for a week and then quietly retired.

The seniors we are designing for are not anti-technology. They have phones. They have TVs. They have microwaves and coffee makers and televisions and toasters. They use these things every day. They are perfectly comfortable with technology that fits into their lives without asking anything from them.

The problem is not that they will not use technology. The problem is that they will not use technology that asks them to be someone they are not.

What they are telling us.

The seniors we talk to are not subtle about this. They tell us, plainly, what they will and will not accept.

They will not wear something that makes them look sick. They will not wear something that catches on their clothes. They will not carry something they have to remember to charge. They will not push a button to confirm they are okay. They will not have cameras in their living rooms. They will not have microphones listening to them. They will not have a screen they have to learn how to use.

This is not stubbornness. This is the rational response of people who have spent 70 or 80 years building a life that works, and have no interest in remodeling that life around someone else idea of what would make them safer.

What the industry keeps building anyway.

Despite this, the AgeTech industry keeps building the things seniors keep telling us they will not use.

There is a new smartwatch every quarter. There is a new pendant every year. There is a new in-home camera with AI on the shelf of every drug store. There is a new voice assistant designed for seniors with bigger buttons and louder speakers and the same fundamental design that the previous one had.

These products get built because they are easy to build, not because they will get used. The smartwatch sells. The pendant sells. The camera sells. And then the smartwatch goes in a drawer, the pendant goes on a dresser, and the camera gets taped over. The sale is the win, not the use.

We have a different definition of winning.

What we built instead.

DAR.WIN is the answer to one question. What is the only technology a senior will actually accept?

The answer turned out to be the technology they do not have to interact with at all. Four smart plugs. Fifteen minutes to install. The plugs go between the wall and the things they were going to plug in anyway. The coffee maker. The TV. The kettle. The lamp.

The senior does not have to wear anything. They do not have to remember anything. They do not have to charge anything. They do not have to learn anything. They do not have to push any buttons. They do not have to change a single thing about how they live.

That is the only design that passes the kitchen-table test. Everything else fails it.

The hardest design problem in the industry.

This is the hardest design problem in our industry, and almost nobody is taking it seriously. Most companies treat the senior as the user who needs to adapt to the technology. We treat the senior as the user the technology has to adapt to.

That single inversion is the whole game. If you start from what the senior will accept, you end up building something that gets used. If you start from what the technology can do, you end up building something that sells once and sits in a drawer.

“We built the one they accept.”

We have spent four years answering one question. The answer changed everything we built. The technology that asks for nothing is the only technology that gets used.