A Digital Gateway to Age-Friendly Living

Developing Strategies and Recommendations to enhance Austin’s Age-Friendly Plan and initiatives.

Project Overview

Amid Austin’s rapidly growing older adult population, this project reimagines the city’s Age-Friendly Action Plan Hub as a digital space that empowers residents to age actively, connect meaningfully, and access resources effortlessly.

“Austin is a city known for its creativity, energy, and vibrancy and now also has the nation’s second fastest-growing population of people 65 and older.This demographic shift poses unique challenges and opportunities.”

- Former mayor Steve Adler

Duration - 4 months

Skills applied - User Research & Insight Synthesis, Systems thinking, Co-creation, Problem Framing & Opportunity Mapping,Concept Development & Strategic Recommendations

Team - Atchayaa Krishnan, Sahana Prabhu, Marilyn Nwora, Evelyn Syau

Client - Dell Med and The city of Austin

Challenge

As Austin’s older adult population grows rapidly, many residents face increasing risks of social isolation and disconnection. The challenge was to transform the city’s Age-Friendly Action Plan Hub into a welcoming digital space that fosters belonging, accessibility, and meaningful engagement for older adults navigating life in a changing city.

We crafted a set of design and communication strategies to transform the Austin Age-Friendly Action Plan Hub into a user-friendly, inclusive digital platform for older adults, paired with targeted marketing approaches to increase awareness and participation citywide.

Outcome

Our team developed strategies and design recommendations to revamp the existing Austin Age-Friendly Action Plan Hub, making it more intuitive, accessible, and engaging for older adults while enhancing its visibility through strategic outreach and marketing.

Design Process

Define

Research

Ideate

Prototype

Test

Define

Growing Austin's Elderly Population

Approximately 25% of community-dwelling Americans aged 65 and older are considered to be socially isolated.”

“People who are 50 years of age or older are more likely to experience many of the risk factors that can cause or exacerbate social isolation or loneliness, such as living alone, the loss of family or friends, chronic illness, and sensory impairments.”

- 2020 report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Project Scope

While the Age-Friendly Action Plan spans eight key domains, our team prioritized two that offered the greatest potential for digital impact, focusing our redesign efforts on enhancing usability, relevance, and connection for older adults.

Chosen 2 Domains

The goal of Domain 4: Social Participation is to combat sadness and isolation In the older adult community by providing accessible, affordable, & fun social activities.

The goal of Domain 5: Respect and Social Inclusion is to provide ways for the young and old to learn from one another, honor what each has to offer and, at the same time, feel good about themselves.

The Problem

Older adults in Austin face growing barriers to accessibility and inclusion, often resulting in social isolation and underrecognized contributions. The challenge lies in creating opportunities that celebrate their wisdom, build intergenerational connections, and enhance social and emotional well-being.

Research

Intercept Activity

Over 140 voices came together in a participatory sticky-note activity to share perspectives on aging, sparking meaningful conversations and shaping our understanding of what it means to age in Austin.

Conceptual Interviews

To understand diverse perspectives within Austin’s aging ecosystem, we conducted conceptual interviews across four key stakeholder groups:

1. Older Generation (4 participants)
Representing the fastest-growing demographic in Austin, their lived experiences and aspirations offered valuable insights into the needs and challenges of aging in the city.

2. Sandwich Generation (5 participants)
Working adults balancing careers while caring for aging parents, this group provided a unique dual perspective, highlighting the realities of intergenerational caregiving and systemic touchpoints.

3. Younger Generation (3 participants)
While expressing respect for older adults, this group reflected on the discomfort and distance that often exist in intergenerational interactions, revealing opportunities to bridge connection and empathy.

4. Subject Matter Experts & Existing Programs (3 participants)
Community leaders and practitioners within Austin’s aging network shared insights on current initiatives, policy progress, and gaps that remain in building a truly age-friendly city.

"Older adults pass down a lot of historical experiences and I find cute to hang out with them!"

- Younger Generation

“We push the elderly generation

off the side because we are

thinking about other things

happening in our lives; they

aren’t in the workforce."

- Sandwhich Generation

"When I retire. I might take classes just for fun of it and I would love to learn different languages."

- Older Generation

Synthesis & Insights

After synthesizing our primary research, we arrived at the following insights, which highlight the interconnected challenges and potential avenues for improvement.

Empathy Mapping: Through empathy mapping, I uncovered that every generation values connection and faces loneliness, highlighting the potential of intergenerational relationships to foster mutual growth and understanding.

Insights

Social & Structural Barriers

Older Austinites are more likely to feel lonely and isolated due to shrinking social circles, feelings of social exclusion, along with practical barriers such as transportation.

Lack of Trust and Centralised Resources

Austin has services for older adults, but the city fails to consolidate these resources in a way to promotes trustworthiness, usage, and visibility.

Need for Social Connection

The need for social connection transcends generations, highlighting its universal importance for both younger and older adults.

Need for Intentionality & Reciprocity

Intentional and reciprocal activities are necessary to counteract loneliness in older adults and nurture social connections.

Ideation

Our team developed concepts at three different levels, and after consulting with our clients, we proceeded with the system-level concept: Enhancing Austin Hub services for older adults.

Evaluative & Strategic Level

Aims to evaluate Austin’s aging ecosystem and Age Friendly Plan via quantitative (number of programs, attendance, implementation) and qualitative (experiences, awareness, value added) metrics.

System Level

Addresses systemic factors that prevent accessibility to existing programs (e.g. lack of resource consolidation and transportation barriers).

Ground

Level

Offers ground-level solutions to enhance age friendliness, counteract social isolation/loneliness, and promote intergenerational connection

System Level Intervention

Enhancing Austin's Service Hub for Older Adults
Revamping Austin’s service hub to be an integrated, user-friendly database that aims to connect older adults to programs based on interests and needs, as well as identifying programming gaps based on area and geographical location.

Value Proposition
Assesses systemic gaps in the distribution and focus areas of programs. Improves awareness among older adults of existing programs.

How are End-Users Finding the Existing Austin Hub?

On Trustworthiness:
Information is available everywhere. Older adults have trouble figuring out who to trust and where to go for safe, accurate, and helpful information.

On Usability:
Assesses systemic gaps in the distribution and focus areas of programs. Improves awareness among older adults of existing programs.

On Visibility:
I’ve never heard of Austin having an aging services hub for older adults like myself.

Prototype

Insights to Experience Principles of the site

Co Designing with the end-users

We validate our concepts by creating low-fidelity prototypes and co-designing website content and pages with our end-users. The process involves allowing the end-user to drag in the desired contents and paste them into the layout on the homepage. This helps us ensure that the website meets the users' needs and preferences.

Prototypes

Mock-ups of the webpage and its contents that meet the users' needs and preferences.

Implementation Plan