What is it like to be old ?

When designing a product for people over sixty, it is important that to have a clear understanding of some key aspects of their lives. It is my opinion that following aspects are too general and should be taken into account when designing any product for this age group.

1 - Health and Physical capabilities
Inevitable consequence of getting old is the deterioration of health and physical capabilities. Although it might sound trivial, this is one factor that a product designer cannot afford to overlook. This factor is particularly important because it directly concerns with user's interaction with the product. eg: Lack of hearing might limit the use of an alarm clock design for older people unless product designer taken it to consideration.

2 - Finance
Income of older people varies but in general it is somewhat limited. So there is no point in building a product that the targeted group can't afford. In fact there is a trade-off between the price and the robustness of the product. If sufficient resources are not used to ensure that the product is well built and robust, it will be prone to break often, which is once again not financially friendly to old folks.

3 - Attitude
Old people are usually quite conservative and are reluctant to introduce changes into their lives. This is mainly to do with the fact that as people get older they don't want to make an effort to learn new things, in their eyes it is a waste of time. They are more interested in leading a peaceful and simple life.
So when designing a product one needs to tackle this challenge. In my opinion it can be dealt with two approaches. Product should make a significant difference to the lives of the older people. The difference must be made obvious to the customer. On the other hand the product should have an extremely user friendly interface, so the old people can learn to use it without much of an effort.

4 - Social Background
Final issue we need to consider is the social background. People from different backgrounds have different levels of understanding and need of technology. For example a retired engineer might be able to fix electronic equipment by himself whereas a retired cleaner may need to hire an electrician to fix things for her. Also people have different social practices. For example some older people likes socializing with their families, some are quite happy to lead lonely lives.
I am not suggesting product designers must become elitists. My point is, designer should have a clear idea who he wants to target. Old people (60+) simply is not one unique domain, it is divided into many subsets and social background is one way of identifying these different subsets.