AgeLab Research Showcased at DRS 2026

Researchers Nour Al Maalouf and Elisa Cardamone presented AgeLab research at the Design Research Society biennial conference hosted in partnership with the University of Edinburgh this June in Edinburgh, Scotland.

At the conference, Al Maalouf presented a paper, “The Role of Packaging in Smart Home Design,” which she produced alongside Chaiwoo Lee.

In response to digital technologies becoming increasingly critical to independent aging, Al Maalouf’s study had older adults trial three smart home kit prototypes, paying particular attention to the kits’ packaging. Participants generally had better experiences with packaging that was easy to understand and open, or made of sustainable materials, often in contrast with packaging they had encountered in the past that frustrated them. Al Maalouf’s findings reveal how packaging can influence a consumer's decision to adopt a technological product; past research has shown that many older adults will abandon a technology if they encounter early friction during installation.

Cardamone also presented a paper titled “AGNES as a Critical Wearable: Mediating Age, Materiality, and Embodied Expertise.” Taylor Brennan, Sophia Ashebir, Lisa D’Ambrosio, and Joseph Coughlin were credited as co-authors.

Her study examined the capacity for AGNES—a full-body suit designed by the AgeLab to simulate an older version of the wearer—to function as a design intervention by shifting designers’ perspectives to that of an older person, and thus exposing inequities in the design of structures like transit systems. She argues that “age” is not just biological but also socially and materially constructed through interactions with environments and technologies.