We present a review of literature from the fields of gerontology, gerontechnology, HCI and government policy that deals with social and technical solutions for the ageing population. We highlight common assumptions about ageing people, which we argue are still embedded in much of the research related to the domain of ageing. This paper challenges six common assumptions across four broad themes that we identified in the literature. It aims to provide a reminder and resource for designers to eschew assumptions during designing technology for 'older' users.

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A carer or teacher often plays the role of proxy or spokesperson for a person living with an intellectual disability or form of cognitive or sensory impairment. Our research undertook co-design with people living with cognitive and sensory impairments and their proxies in order to explore new ways of facilitating communication. We developed simple functioning interactive prototypes to support people with a diverse range of competencies to communicate and explore their use. Deployment of the prototypes enabled use, appropriation and design after design by our two participant groups; adults living with cognitive or sensory impairments and children identified with language delays and autism spectrum disorder. The prototypes supported concrete expression of likes, dislikes, capabilities, emotional wants and needs and forms of expression that hitherto had not been fostered, further informing design. Carers and designers were surprised at the ways in which the technology was used and how it fostered new forms of social interaction and expression. We elaborate on how design after design can be an effective approach for engaging people living with intellectual disabilities, giving them greater capacity for expression and power in design and offering the potential to expand and deepen their social relationships.

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Since the advent of participatory design in the work democracy projects of the 1970s and 1980s in Scandinavia, computing technology and people's engagement with it have undergone fundamental changes. Although participatory design continues to be a precondition for designing computing that aligns with human practices, the motivations to engage in participatory design have changed, and the new era requires formats that are different from the original ones. Through the analysis of three case studies, this paper seeks to explain why participatory design must be brought to bear on the field of ubiquitous computing, and how this challenges the original participatory design thinking. In particular, we will argue that more casual, exploratory formats of engagement with people are required, and rather than planning the all-encompassing systems development project, participatory design needs to move towards iterative, experimental design explorations to provide necessary understanding of today's complex contexts and practices. We argue that there does not need to be a discrepancy between the ideals of empowering people with new technology, and the understanding of customer value in a business perspective.