Not Just a Number : A Multidimensional Approach to Ageing in HCI

Knowles, Bran and Fledderjohann, Jasmine and Singh, Aneesha and Harper, R.H.R. and McDowell, Julia and Tsouvalis, Judith and Ashcroft, Alice and Rogers, Yvonne and Soubutts, Ewan and Steptoe, Andrew and Swarbrick, Caroline (2025) Not Just a Number : A Multidimensional Approach to Ageing in HCI. Interacting with Computers. ISSN 0953-5438 (In Press)

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Abstract

The focus on managing problems that can arise for older adults has meant that extant HCI and Ageing research has not given the concepts of 'age' and 'ageing' the explicit theoretical attention they deserve. Attending to this gap, we critically examine a ten-year corpus of CHI publications through the lens of an existing typology which we have further developed to analyse how age is understood, interpreted and constructed in the field of HCI. Our resulting multidimensional typology of age in HCI elucidates the distinctive characteristics of older adults considered when designing with and for this user group, but also highlights the need for a more critical, reflexive, social constructivist approach to age in HCI. Applying this approach, we explore age as a multidimensional system of stratification to better understand the phenomenon of the age-based digital divide.