User-Centred Innovation

Co-Design

Product Development & Design for Manufacture

Vitality Age-Friendly Bench

Co-designed with the UK National Innovation Centre for Ageing's VOICE community - from concept to manufacture

Public seating often ignores the needs of older people, cold to the touch, with no arm rests to help when getting up and nowhere to prop a walking stick. Bringing end users into a co-design process addresses this head on!

Through a series workshops with older people from the UK National Innovation Centre for Ageing's VOICE community, we gained a deep and empathetic understanding of user requirements which informed our design and development for local manufacture. 

The bench was featured in the Great Exhibition of the North 2018 as an exemplar of user-centred design, and is available commercially from Jarrow-based manufacturer Miko Engineering .

Photo of a bench with a walking stick propped up against one of the arm rests
Photo of one of the workshops conducted with the “VOICE” community at the UK National Innovation Centre for Ageing

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