An Older Adult Perspective on the Future of Identity Technologies

Identity management- the identification and authentication of identities towards institutions, things and other people- has been highlighted as one of the main private and public challenges of the future [Gartner, 2012]. Identity technologies are a growing area within research and development, for governments and corporations as well as commercial services worldwide. We can clearly envisage that the design and implementation of these future identity technologies will have the power to include or exclude certain users, in terms of the services, goods or information they can access. However, developments in this field rarely adopt an inclusive or value-sensitive design approach to understand the challenges people may face. This paper will outline a scenario-sourcing exercise used to identify developments in identity management, and describe how these scenarios were used as probes in workshops with marginalized community groups. In particular, we will focus on our inclusion of older adults in our workshops, as well as their involvement in a cross-generational event with teenagers. Our findings echo Herzberg’s [1966] identification of hygiene factors (prerequisites for engagement) and motivators (factors that bring additional value) which emerged in our discussions of identity technologies with older adults. We reflect that older adults are able to carefully consider their adoption of future identity technologies, and can provide valuable insights when involved in inclusive design research.