Shaping a Longevity Service Through Visual, Tangible, Cultural, and Social Artifacts

In the era of longevity economics, people not only live longer, but also desire a better quality of life. People are living longer, but our social infrastructure—including healthcare, education, and finance—is not equipped to deal with the socio-technological challenges that come with aging, like health and money problems. According to research conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2022, most countries are grappling with the need to transform their health and social systems to address the rapidly expanding aging population. The research discussed in this paper aims to develop an effective longevity service by employing visual and tangible artifacts through four co-creation workshops and 12 semi-structured interviews. The 20 Cambridge- or Boston-based participants engaged with a prototype longevity coaching service, in an attempt to identify and reflect on their needs for a longer life and to project their future selves through the lens of a longevity service. This study addressed four questions: 1. How can people’s ideas and visual concepts be effectively translated into tangible prototypes in a co-creation workshop? 2. What are the advantages of incorporating visuals and tangible artifacts in a longevity coaching service to reframe and address longevity-related challenges? 3. How can subtle needs and insights be discerned through the cultural and social perspectives integrated into a longevity coaching service? 4. In what ways can tangible artifacts, complemented by visuals and text, be used to raise awareness about the longevity coaching service and culture, thereby enhancing people’s understanding of their holistic well-being in the future? The study explored and discussed the concept of Design for Longevity (D4L) enriched by the integration of visual, tangible, cultural, and social dimensions, which serves as a framework for building and refining a more meaningful, respectful, and inclusive longevity coaching service.