Market Research

Browsing the web I came across a Retirement Exhibition with information on the exhibition and an overview of the ideas behind it. I believe these points are vital and allow us to think laterally our design geared to this sector of the society. The following points are taken from the pdf:

• Twenty million people in the UK - or one-third of the
population - are over 50.
• The over-50s control 80% of the UK’s wealth, have little or no
debt and huge spending power.
• The retired/semi-retired/aspire-to-retire don’t work, take
more holidays than younger people and indulge in a wide
variety of leisure pursuits.
• The over 50s are going to be the driving force in the UK
economy over the next 30 years as baby boomers move into
the next phase of their lives.
• By 2031, the number of people aged 80 and over will rise from
2.2 million to 4.9 million.
• More than 70% of current 50-somethings have no mortgage
to pay, leaving them with a 30% higher disposable income than
younger generations.
• The pot of assets and cash held by people over 50 is valued at
over UK£175 billion.

As we can see the vast wealth in this sector and the possible revenue pitching an idea at this group will provide. We have thought primarily about health and mobility related issues where as these other topics taken from the pdf will allow us to think of some more ideas that may have relevant to our designs:

GARDENING - A hobby, love and a tradition
HEALTH - A lot of ideas can come from this area, we have already come up with a few
FINANCE - Capital and investments to be maintained and used effectively
ANTIQUES - Getting some extra money for holidays and outings or just collecting for personal pleasure
SIMPLY DANCING - A hobby celebrated from the war era and taken up again in later life
PROPERTY - Current property and invested property assets with also a view to leaving it to their families in their will.
TRAVEL - possibly the biggest expenditure for this sector on such companies like SAGA

All of these areas have possible attruibutes linked to them weather it be hardware to aid the users in the activities or software to pursue and facilitate their ideas. I feel in the next team meeting we should take and brain storm some of these ideas for that purpose. Also if we extend Darrens persona's and then we may be able to make a final pitch for the design we wish to do.

Looking at the questionnaire I feel that if we try to develop task analysis' for the persona's and pitch questions aimed at the main points that we extrapolate from them. This should also be brought up in the meeting to get a good variety of opinions and allows us to screen the questions before their distribution.