How many Stanford students does it take to get older adults dancing in their living rooms? The Stanford Center on Longevity (SCL), in association with Stanford’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, just might have the answer after completing the first ever interdisciplinary course offering on Design for Agile Aging. In the two quarter class, team taught by Terry Winograd, (Computer Science), Carol Winograd (Medicine), Anne Friedlander (Stanford Center on Longevity) and Paul Yock (Biodesign), graduate and undergraduate students developed projects designed to be taken out into the real world to help older people stay healthy and active as they age. Dr. Friedlander states, “The class combined students from fields ranging from computer science to human biology to business. We have a unique opportunity right here on campus to get some of the brightest, young people interested in and working on solutions for maintaining mobility in the aging population. These students will take an appreciation and understanding of longevity related issues with them as they graduate and move out into their communities”

During winter quarter 2008, 19 students came up with a variety of ideas and prototypes for products focused on improving mobility and independence in the population 65 years and older. In the spring, 5 students chose one of the projects and developed it into a working prototype which has the potential to impact the lives of older adults in the near future. While developing their products, students were guided by professionals from fields relating to all elements of the design and implementation process, including business, marketing, design, physiology of aging, psychology, medicine, engineering, computer science, and more. Experts were drawn from the Stanford campus, the design firm IDEO, and the surrounding community.

Student design teams looked at the needs of seniors not just from their own fields of study but by looking at how older people interact with their physical environment and the marketplace. Dr. Carol Winograd explains: “They went out into the community and observed older adults at swim centers, dance classes, nursing homes, and shopping centers. They talked to their older parents and grandparents, and their grandparents’ friends. They gathered information from healthy, mobile seniors and older people who were disabled. Then the students all got together in groups to figure out how to motivate and enable seniors to get up out of their chairs, keep moving, and stay socially connected.” At the end of the process, the groups generated a variety of products, devices, and programs. Their innovations were designed to help older adults do things such as exercise with a buddy in the swimming pool, obtain transportation to public events like concerts, access public transportation with canes and walkers more easily, and install elegant design disability aids in their home bathrooms that are unobtrusive when guests come over.

So what did the five students who went on to the spring quarter choose to develop for their final project? What started out in the winter quarter as “ExerPong”, an exercise game designed for seniors to play on their TV set, ended up as an innovative, interactive, internet program called “Memic.” The student design team who developed the program include Nicholas Briggs and David Carrick, graduate students in computer science; Virginia Chu, a bioengineering graduate student studying movement and movement control; Alicia Riley, a graduate student in Latin American Studies; and Leah Hodge, a graduate student at the Stanford Business School. The group was led by fellow graduate student and teaching assistant, Steven Marmon, from the computer science department.

Memic, which stands for “movement, mimicry, and me”, enables senior citizens to use a split screen feature on their TV to interact remotely with friends, kids and grandkids while dancing together, exercising together or playing movement games. Co-creator Alicia Riley relates, “We wanted two people who were miles apart to be able to have a shared dance experience in their homes. We saw this as an opportunity for older adults over age 60 to connect with their kids and grandkids with music and dance in the safe environment of their living room. We wanted to create a product that would give older adults permission to dance and move, while also making sure the program was easy to use. To increase the fun factor, we included a wide variety of appealing music and made sure the audio was clear so the users could talk and laugh during the experience.”

And talk and laugh the users did. A video of the prototype in action for Memic was presented to a packed house at the Design School on June 3rd, 2008. It features Grandma Lillian receiving a call from her 4 year old grandson, Kfir, who lives across the country. “Grandma, time to dance!” Kfir says excitedly as the Memic program is activated. For their first dance, they pick a Disney tune, and Lillian and Kfir boogie down, while Kfir laughs non-stop. Both Grandma and grandson see and respond to each other on the split screen, and to Kfir’s delight, they also have the company of Disney characters dancing along with them. At one point, Lillian needs a rest so she sits down and moves her arms while Kfir continues dancing. Grandpa comes in the room and seeing all the fun, decides to join in for a while before saying goodbye. The next morning, Lillian is observed tuning back into Memic for a relaxing session of Thai Chi with an instructor.

After their presentation, the students gave particular credit to the collaborative process for Memic’s creation. Nicholas Briggs states, “In designing our product we looked at it from many angles. We analyzed the process through the lenses of technology, business, and human values and assessed feasibility, availability and desirability. Then we observed older adults in various environments to evaluate mobility and movement.” With such a multifaceted approach, every graduate student in the project brought a unique expertise to bear in its design and left with a unique appreciation for the contributions of fellow students from other fields. According to David Carrick, “Having multiple disciplines enabled the project to coalesce quickly and make a better product.” Leah Hodge concurs, “It was challenging, but I found it helpful for scaling back and keeping it simple. We ended up with something that could increase physical activity for seniors that we could get to market, rather than a product that tried to be something for everyone and ended up being not enough for anyone.”

And as for Dr. Friedlander’s projection that courses like Design for Agile Aging will have a ripple effect in bringing the issue of mobility for seniors out into the community, one need look no further than Stanford Business School graduate Hodge. She will be going straight from her experience in the class to a job as an associate executive director for Erickson Retirement Community, and she will be bringing the knowledge she gained about aging and mobility with her. Hodge states, “I am going to be building a network within the senior citizen community, and I intend to take these ideas and get them out there to people.” Over the next several months, the graduate students, teaching team and SCL will be evaluating the Memic program to determine whether it should be developed further. “The class was a great success,” declares Professor Terry Winograd. “It was the first ever aging project at the interdisciplinary Design Center and we are looking forward to doing it again next year.”