Why does so much technology built for older adults look like it was designed for a four-year-old?
Erin went looking for a fidget product for her dad, who had advanced Alzheimer's disease and kept trying to take apart the mechanics of his wheelchair. Almost everything she found was oversized and primary-colored, made for a toddler. It is the physical version of something that ships in software every week.
On this episode of Designing for Dignity, Erin Young talks with Kunal Parikh, an independent consultant in AgeTech and health technology innovation. Kunal traces infantilizing design back to a society that measures people by productivity, then names the four places it shows up: visual design, language, interaction patterns, and device form factor. His diagnosis is that it happens when a team hasn't talked to enough people. A few friends and your parents is not a sample size.
He also makes a case most AgeTech business models are built against. If a product's job is to strengthen someone's ability to manage their own health, its goal is to make itself unnecessary.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
ABOUT KUNAL PARIKH
Kunal Parikh is a consultant in AgeTech and health technology innovation. He practiced medicine in India before moving into digital health, and holds a master's in Aging and Health from Queen's University for award-winning research on virtual caregiver training. He teaches at Algonquin College and gave a TEDx talk called "Did You Know You Are A Caregiver?" He is writing a book on the ethics and equity of aging, caregiving, and the technology built for both.
CHAPTERS
(00:00) Introduction
(01:33) Why a physician left clinical practice
(04:10) Coordinating care from another country
(07:23) Logistical labor and emotional labor
(12:10) A fidget product made for toddlers
(13:09) Four ways AgeTech infantilizes
(15:51) Productivity, personhood, and value
(17:00) How Erin prepares for brain change
(19:23) Gamification built for adults
(23:17) Overt monitoring and covert monitoring
(27:59) Consent decay and meaningful consent
(31:21) Where medical and tech ethics meet
(34:55) Designing to make itself unnecessary
(37:58) Engagement load units
(42:53) When a founder is ready for help
(53:31) Where to find Kunal
ABOUT THE SHOW
Designing for Dignity is a podcast from Slide UX about how design shapes autonomy, connection, and quality of life for people navigating aging, brain change, and care.
Topics: AgeTech, brain change, family caregiving, consent, infantilization, passive monitoring, data governance, digital health
