Inclusive Technologies for Supporting Aging and Disability
摘要
Aging and disability have traditionally been treated as distinct fields of study, separated by disciplinary silos and assumptions about onset and trajectory. However, demographic shifts, medical advances, and lived realities of individuals increasingly highlight the interconnectedness of aging with and into a disability. This entry examines the “aging-disability nexus” and its implications for technology design to support autonomy, participation, and well-being across the life course. This entry critiques biomedical and deficit-based models that pathologize difference and reinforce narrow definitions of normalcy. These models often produce mismatches between the technologies and the lives they are meant to support, limiting their relevance and impact. Instead, this entry foregrounds lived experience as central to inclusive design, emphasizing that technologies must adapt across time rather than assume an “average user.” Technologies should be understood not as static products but as dynamic, relational tools that evolve alongside individuals’ changing capacities, identities, and environments. This entry shares design recommendations, including participatory approaches, the integration of intersectionality, and accountability in design processes, while also embedding responsiveness, adaptability, equity, and broader systemic awareness into technology design processes. Such approaches emphasize that inclusive design must account for context, diversity, history, and power. By centering aging and disability as complex, fluid, and intersecting experiences, this entry argues for a justice-oriented vision of technology design. One that values difference, resists extractive practices, and fosters equity across diverse communities of older adults. Ultimately, inclusive technology is not only about accessibility or usability; it is about enabling agency across the lifespan, ensuring that older adults are recognized as co-creators of technologies that shape their present and future well-being.