Publications

This report shares findings from Empowering Senior Voices in Melbourne’s City North precinct, where older adults used digital tools, neighbourhood walks and co-design to document their experiences of the city and identify opportunities for change. It brings together their priorities and recommendations for safer, more accessible, inclusive and age-friendly communities, and shows how lived experience can inform civic dialogue, policy and urban planning.

Digital inclusion requires more than teaching people how to use technology. This research shows how perceived risks, confidence and trust can shape older adults’ digital participation, even when they have the necessary skills. Through co-design with older adults and community partners, the Shaping Connections project developed practical tools and resources grounded in lived experience to support safer, more confident and sustained engagement with digital technologies.

Digital exclusion is often treated as a problem of access or digital skills, placing responsibility on individuals to participate successfully. This research argues that inclusion is also shaped by the systems people encounter: how digital services are designed, how organisations respond and adapt, and whether people have meaningful opportunities to participate. Drawing on community-based projects with older adults, it shows that sustainable digital inclusion requires more than getting people online. It requires markets and institutions to create the conditions that enable people to participate, contribute and remain included.

Demographic ageing is reshaping global marketplaces, yet marketing continues to marginalise older adults. Ageist marketing is not a set of isolated practices but instead a systemic set of marketing practices embedded in discourses, structures, and ideologies, through which older consumers are framed by the deficit logics of decline, dependency, or burden, resulting in their exclusion from full participation in markets. These practices parallel other forms of marketplace discrimination, such as sexism and racism, positioning older consumers as deficient. In response, I advance a strengths-based framework for age-inclusive marketing, centred on four interrelated pillars: diverse and authentic representation, accessible and universal design, participatory engagement, and empowering narratives. These pillars form a conceptual bridge from ageist exclusion towards age-inclusive practice, spanning the gap between deficit and strengths-based marketing. This framework makes age-inclusivity both an ethical imperative and a strategic opportunity for marketing scholarship.

As populations age and digital technologies become integral to daily life, fostering ICT skills among older adults is crucial for independence, social inclusion, and well-being. While peer learning supports digital engagement, research often highlights limitations. This study adopts a strengths-based approach, focusing on older adults' capabilities in peer-led ICT learning. Using qualitative data from an older adult learning organisation, we identify four key strengths-based behaviours, Pioneering, Experiencing, Enabling, and Responding, forming the PEER framework. Our findings show how peer learning empowers older adults through mutual respect, practical engagement, emotional support, and responsiveness. The study contributes to designing ICT programmes that leverage older adults' strengths.

This study examines how older adults perceive risks associated with digital environments. It specifically looks into how these perceptions affect the frequency with which older adults engage in digital activities in their daily lives.

This paper explores how socialisation agents affect digital competence in older adults (65+ years). Data was gathered from the University of the Third Age (U3A) Network Victoria, which offers courses for the retired and semi-retired. A two-stage approach was used: focus groups and 21 in-depth interviews. The research identifies three consumer socialisation processes: reciprocity, self-socialisation, and outsourcing, highlighting key socialisation agents and their impact on learners' outcomes. The study reveals the complex processes and barriers older adults face in becoming digitally competent, emphasizing the need to address negative attitudes, improve device access, and support their independence.

The ability of older adults to engage with information and communication technologies (ICT) is crucial in today's digital world. Anxiety about ICT can hinder their daily living, reducing freedom, quality of life, independence, and wellbeing, and may lead to social and economic exclusion. This paper, based on a survey of 706 older Australian adults, examines factors influencing ICT-related anxiety. Findings show anxiety increases with social pressure and perceived risks, while a positive attitude and technical skills reduce anxiety. Building digital competencies in older adults is essential. Understanding these factors helps organizations develop strategies to reduce anxiety and bridge the digital divide.

During the COVID-19 lockdowns (2020-2021), life became digital, affecting health, work, schooling, and logistics. Digital access equated to social inclusion, but also highlighted inequalities, especially among older adults (65+). This diverse group ranges from tech-savvy individuals to non-users. As the first generation aging in a data-rich world, they offer insights into new media's potential and limits. Using cultural probes like drawing and writing prompts can reveal lived experiences and support technological engagement. This paper examines how playful co-design with personas can enhance understanding of older adults' digital experiences. It focuses on six workshops using personas to challenge and explore digital experiences, merging speculative fiction with lived experiences to rethink the digital-social dimension for older adults.

This study seeks to fill the current gap in co-design frameworks by presenting the EMPOWER framework, a strength-based co-design methodological approach tailored to address the primary empowerment challenges when co-designing with individuals facing vulnerability. The study aims to offer a set of memorable empowering guidelines to improve the co-design process.

This report explores the experiences of aged-care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on their challenges, coping mechanisms, and sources of strength. Conducted by RMIT University researchers, the study used interviews with workers at an Australian aged-care facility to examine the pandemic's impact. Key challenges identified include increased stress, anxiety, burnout, and workloads due to understaffing and infection prevention demands, along with the emotional toll of managing residents with cognitive impairments and negative public perception. The report highlights workers' resilience through personal strategies like acceptance and professional identity, and relational strategies involving support from family, friends, and co-workers. It underscores the importance of effective management and governmental support in addressing these issues. The report concludes with recommendations for systemic support, improved staffing, better management practices, enhanced family and community engagement, and networking opportunities, aiming to inform policy-making and improve the work environment and care quality in aged-care facilities.

The COVID-19 pandemic emphasized the importance of digital engagement for social inclusion among older adults, enabling them to use information and communication technologies (ICT) crucial for their wellbeing. This report examines the aspirations and barriers faced by older adults in the City of Whittlesea and proposes strategies to help them overcome these challenges. It focuses on three key areas for developing support programs: older adults' aspirations to adopt technology, barriers hindering technology adoption, and strategies to support them.

This research explores the socialisation agents older consumers use to learn about ICT. We surveyed 871 older consumers in Victoria, Australia, regarding their preferred sources for ICT advice. Participants identified their top two sources for help and evaluated the usefulness of the advice and their ICT knowledge level. Findings show older consumers primarily rely on younger family members, but non-familial sources are crucial for digital preparedness. Interestingly, ICT knowledge is influenced by their second choice of advice, often not their adult children. This research enhances understanding of older consumers' perceptions of ICT socialisation agents. Consumer socialisation theory indicates that these agents affect marketplace functioning, but initial advice does not necessarily improve ICT knowledge.

Digital inclusion is crucial for wellbeing in later life, making it essential to understand older adults’ preferences for ICTs and develop strategies to support their digital literacy. Barriers include perceived ICT risks and learning capacity, alongside environmental stressors and societal norms. This article outlines the outcomes of co-design workshops aimed at enhancing ICT competencies and reducing perceived risks among older adults. Engaging 45 older Australians through three workshops, the study used the “Scenario Personarrative Method” to depict technology experiences and strategies employed by seniors. By enriching digital literacy personas and mapping responses to scenarios, the workshops highlighted opportunities and barriers, offering a collaborative strategy development approach. The co-designed persona method provides nuanced ICT risk strategies, contextualizing risks and enhancing digital literacy skills and motivations.

Designers aiming to support healthy ageing often struggle with biases and stigmas toward older adults, affecting the technologies they create. This article critically examines these issues from a design research perspective, engaging with the interdisciplinary study of aging and technology. It introduces "resolution" as a concept to describe the level of detail in representations of later life. This is explored through a cultural probe study involving older Australians, which examined the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on social isolation and inequities. The study used diaries, photovoice, and mapping tasks to capture perceptions of social technology, practices, networks, and wellbeing, providing a complex view of aging and technology. Reflexive thematic analyses offer designers insights into including older adults in their work. By discussing the limitations and qualities of participatory methods, the concept of resolution helps designers create better images and representations of aging.

The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the importance of digital engagement in promoting social inclusion for older adults. The ability to manage risks and utilize information and communication technologies (ICT) is vital for their wellbeing. However, many older adults refrain from engaging with ICT and the digital economy due to perceived risks. A lack of understanding and ability to manage these risks can restrict their online interaction.

This report details the perceived risks that most impact older adults and presents co-designed strategies that address their real-life experiences with ICT, aligning practices with perceptions.

This booklet empowers older adults to navigate the digital world safely and confidently by addressing barriers to digital inclusion. It focuses on reducing perceived risks associated with Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and promoting digital engagement. Based on extensive research, it identifies six key risks: Operational, Social, Privacy, Purchase, Overspending, and Physical. Each risk is explored with real-life examples and practical strategies for both beginner and experienced users. The booklet enhances digital literacy, enabling seniors to participate in the digital economy while mitigating risks. It is a valuable tool for seniors, caregivers, and policymakers working to bridge the digital divide and create a more inclusive digital society.

Many seniors perceive risks that deter their use of technology that could enrich their lives, write the Shaping Connections team.

This report explores risk perceptions, which refer to beliefs about potential harm or the likelihood of a loss. These are subjective judgments people make regarding the nature and seriousness of a risk. The report outlines the results of the first stage of the project, "Explore and Quantify." This stage involved analyzing 22 exploratory interviews, which led to the creation of 22 video vignettes showcasing older adults' perceptions of information and communication technology (ICT) risks (March 2021), as well as findings from a survey conducted with approximately 400 members of the University of the Third Age (U3A) (June 2021).