User Experience Centred Design for Chinese Seniors’ Community Employment

Against an accelerating aging population, China bears a heavy burden of old age. Many older people face a poverty crisis due to a lack of social security. Therefore, focusing on the resources of older people and using the old clothes recycling project as a breakthrough point, this paper designs an online and offline process to help older people find employment in the community. This paper first uses literature research to propose that clothing recycling projects can re-employ older people in the community. Then User Requirements Analysis was conducted using the interview method based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to improve the user experience. Afterward, a specific design framework was proposed for the innovative transformation of clothing for commercializing community clothing recycling and disposal. At the same time, the online process APP was developed with a gamified interaction design to motivate users to participate. This research aims to drive community employment for the low-aged elderly, to allow older people to train in relevant activity participation skills, improve their living conditions, build new interpersonal networks with community activities, and enhance older people’s sense of community integration. Based on previous research, this paper proposes a community-led recycling process for clothes to help older people find employment. Also, it provides a reference for subsequent community employment designs for the lower-aged elderly.