Innovation Science

Cognition Boom

In August I spoke at the major hearing aid conference of the year, the International Symposium on Auditory and Audiological Research. What struck me at this year’s meeting was the preponderance of talks on cognitive issues. Two years ago, there were less than a handful of people presenting at these conferences on cognition and hearing loss or hearing aids. Now, it’s starting to become a dominant topic at conferences, and I’m more often hearing from PhD students who are basing their dissertations in this broad area.

I’ve posted before on the emergence of cognition as a major theme in many areas. Earlier this month, I was at a conference on Aging and Speech Communication, where the focus was on how how changes to cognition and hearing from aging affect communication ability. Several research presentations made clear that older subjects are more distracted by irrelevant information and were less able to ignore this information than younger people. When conducting tasks on a computer screen, the older subjects were less able to do the task when there were many items on the screen, and benefited more than younger subjects did by a clean and simple graphical user interface. Similar findings occurred with other modes of information.

This kind of research has huge implications for companies producing products for the older crowd, targeting the aging population of America. Several social networks targeted at the aging population have sprung up (Boomj, where customers must be too old to be worried about the “bj” favicon; Eons, which has the trademarked search engine cRANKy), and Facebook has been invaded by the post-college crowd who probably find the interface a little busy. A company that develops an understanding of how different age groups process information will provide an advantage over competitors that think the only change that needs to be made to such networks is content: Taking a social network designed for younger people and adding an obituaries section and a place to post photos of grandkids isn’t going to cut it. Tools that measure visual clutter or screen complexity could likely identify sites doomed for failure among the older crowd.

Certainly, an understanding of the unique cognitive demands and capabilities of the older population will be necessary for businesses targeting that market. In any business with targeted customers types, I expect that companies will begin to hire cognitive scientists as consultants and employees as they seek to understand their customers better. While User Experience Designer is a hot role in companies today, we could see User Cognition Researcher as the hot position of the future.

The Social Networking Boom(ers)

The latest Fast Company has a short article on the rising importance of social networks. The focus of MySpace and other social networks have been on Generation Y, typically those people under 25. Advertisers have been complaining, however, that revenue hasn’t been as large as expected with this group, with users more interested in sharing favorite music, photos and gossip rather than purchasing targeted products.

I think that the next big social network is going to be the one that captures the attention (and money) of the aging population, particularly retirees. One-quarter of all internet users are over the age of 50. By 2011, the 65–and-older population will be the fastest growing age group in the US. This is a group that loses a large part of their social network when they quit working. They also start exploring pastimes more fully with their newfound time. Their mobility begins to decrease, reducing their ability to maintain social networks among friends in-person. Finally, they are wealthier than Generation Y and would probably be better customers for targeted advertising—who purchases more items from the QVC channel, those over 60 or those under 20?

The numbers are compelling for this group as an emerging market. According to the US Census Bureau, the number of people aged 18–24 will increase by 11% over the next ten years while over the same span the number aged 65 and older will increase by 32%. Boomers are going to be unlike any other generation of retirees: demanding, technology savvy, always wanting the best for themselves, unwilling to sit idly in their golden years. As an article in the March issue of Fast Company stated, the aging boomers

will bring an avalanche of new social challenges, cultural norms, and business opportunities. With a huge increase in the number of older consumers, entirely new entertainment, culture, and news markets will open up--film, television, books, and Internet sites pitched more to the Matlock set than to the Eminem crowd.

Finding the right approach that resonates with this group will be the key to success. What will they want to talk about? What tools would improve their social networking experience? Probably not the ability to share new-found music. The user interface and design will have to be drastically different from what we see in today’s social networking sites. Not only do the interests and tastes of this generation differ from the younger generation using MySpace, mental and physical capabilities differ as well.

Designing the right approach to a Boomer-oriented MySpace will not be obvious for 20– and 30–something programmers who can no longer rely on their own instincts for what will work, what is important and what is “cool”. But the potential for successful market capture with this aging population is huge. The question is how, and who will be the first with the properly-designed MySpace equivalent.