Products designed without older adults in mind often fail them in small but significant ways. Packaging that's hard to grip and open. Instructions printed in type too small to read without a magnifying glass. Devices that assume a level of dexterity, vision, and tech fluency that many users simply don't have.
These aren't minor inconveniences — they erode independence, create frustration, and can lead to real safety risks. For brands in healthcare, consumer goods, and personal care, closing this gap isn't just good ethics. It's good business.
We help product managers, designers, and brand teams understand how older adults actually interact with products — not how they're assumed to — through direct observation and meaningful conversation in the spaces where life actually happens.
Who This Work Is For
Product Managers
Seeking to validate or improve product-market fit for older adult segments
Designers
Looking to embed real user behavior into usability and packaging decisions
Brand Teams
Navigating tone, trust, and communication with an often-overlooked audience
What We Explore
Our research spans the full spectrum of everyday living — from what older adults eat and how they prepare it, to how they manage hygiene, move safely through their homes, and navigate the products that support their independence.
Food & Nutrition
We explore dietary needs, meal preparation habits, and nutritional products for aging adults — both at home and in care settings. From supplement packaging to meal kit accessibility, we examine what actually works at the table.
Personal Care & Hygiene
Products in this space must balance efficacy with dignity. We research daily grooming routines, incontinence care, skincare, and the emotional dimensions of maintaining personal care as physical abilities shift.
Mobility & Home Safety
Assistive devices, grab bars, fall prevention tools, and home modifications are central to aging in place. We assess how older adults adopt — or avoid — these products, and what makes the difference between acceptance and rejection.
Example Use Cases
The following scenarios reflect the kinds of challenges brands bring to us — and the types of insights that change how products are developed, packaged, and positioned.
Supplement Packaging Redesign
A leading nutrition brand discovered through in-home observation that older adults were skipping doses — not due to forgetfulness, but because the bottle was too difficult to open. The insight led to a full packaging overhaul.
Incontinence Product Positioning
A personal care manufacturer needed to understand why their product sat on shelves. Research revealed deep stigma and avoidance behaviors — leading to a repositioning strategy centered on confidence rather than condition management.
Fall Prevention Device Adoption
A medtech company found that caregivers — not end users — were the real adoption gatekeepers for bathroom safety equipment. Understanding that relationship changed their go-to-market approach entirely.
Meal Kit Usability Testing
A consumer food brand learned that recipe card typography, step sequencing, and packaging tear mechanics were creating friction for older adult customers — insights that improved retention and reduced returns.
Methods We Often Use
We bring a deliberate mix of methods to consumer products research — chosen because older adults often reveal more through doing than through telling. Real environments surface the workarounds, the frustrations, and the moments of quiet confidence that controlled settings never capture.
Our in-home ethnography and interview work lets us see how older adults and caregivers actually interact with products — the workarounds, the frustrations, and the moments of confidence — in real environments, not labs. This is the difference between data that describes and insight that drives action.