Embracing a Broader Understanding of Aging: Redefining the Concept of Aging from a Posthumanism Perspective in Design

The worldwide population is rapidly aging, making it one of the defining challenges of the twenty-first century. This demographic shift poses profound challenges and opportunities for the future of design. Existing studies on aging largely follow social or biomedical models, which shape design practices that often reinforce age-related stereotypes and reduce aging to a human-centered or problem-oriented condition. Emerging posthumanism perspectives in aging studies invite a different epistemological stance, which proposes an all‐world aging perspective. This perspective acknowledges aging as a universal, relational social-material phenomenon enacted by interactions between humans and non-humans, transcending the confines of human aging. However, current research, particularly in design, still lacks a clear conceptual foundation for understanding aging from this posthuman lens. Based on this background, this research aims to articulate the posthumanism perspective of design for aging, reshaping discourses and representations by embracing a broader understanding of aging to guide anticipatory actions towards future social transformation. Through a literature review of human-centered design for aging and posthumanism from sociology, gerontology, STS, futures studies, and design studies, this research will critically examine the anthropocentric assumptions embedded in conventional design approaches. Building upon this critique, it will introduce a new conceptualization of aging from a posthumanism perspective. It will further propose corresponding design principles to guide how aging can be approached, studied, and materialized in the practice. Ultimately, this research will contribute to dismantling age-related stereotypes and advancing a more inclusive, reflective, and forward-looking paradigm for design for aging that embraces aging as an entangled, more-than-human condition shaping our collective futures.