Using design to reimagine aged care
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Article Summary
- Human-centred design is shaping aged care reform: The new Aged Care Act (effective July 2025) shifts the sector from a provider-driven model to one focused on individual needs, dignity, and autonomy.
- Key design principles drive transformation: Empathy, collaboration, iteration, and a systems-wide approach ensure aged care spaces and services are accessible, inclusive, and adaptable to evolving needs.
- Sustained collaboration and research are essential: Ongoing user feedback, inter-generational engagement, and flexible design processes will help create a more responsive and effective aged care system.
By Nikki Stefanoff
When Australia’s new Aged Care Reform Act commences on 1 July 2025, it’s set to bring with it a whole new approach to the country’s aged care sector.
It’s an approach centred around shifting from the current provider-driven system to one centred on the individual.
A quick recap
This push for sector-wide transformation began with the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety.
When it published its final report in 2021 – Care, Dignity and Respect – the commission outlined a broken system rich with substandard care and widespread neglect of older Australians.
The report’s subsequent recommendations would become integrated into the federal government’s Aged Care Bill and, at the end of 2024, the confirmation of a new Aged Care Act.
Designing services in 2025
Changing the approach of an entire sector may seem like a Sisyphean task, particularly when the sector in question has remained unchanged since 1997.
And you’re not wrong.
But a lot has happened since the late ‘90s and, as the needs of older Australians have evolved, so too has our approach to designing government systems and services.
In 2025, human-centred design sits at the heart of almost every government transformation project.
Based on a set of core principles, the human-centred design process makes sure the focus of a solution remains on human needs, real-life experience and collective challenges.
What this looks like
1. Empathy
Understand the people you’re designing for. This means user research, interviewing a diverse set of individuals, and using direct observation and facts rather than simply relying on assumptions or hearsay.
2. Collaborate
Involve users, stakeholders, and experts from the very beginning of the design process and always co-design solutions with those who will end up using them.
3. Iterate
Remember that feedback is your friend and failure is all part of the process. Listen to all ideas, understand the insights you’re being given and lean in to prototyping, testing and refining ideas.
4. Go wide
Recognise that user needs exist within larger social, economic, and environmental systems. Look to design solutions that consider long-term impact and sustainability rather than just being a short-term fix.
Translating human-centred design to aged care reform
In aged care, thinking from a human-centred perspective can translate to designing spaces and services that accommodate varying levels of mobility, sensory abilities, and cognitive function.
Improved accessibility and usability
Thoughtful design can mitigate potential barriers, making daily activities more manageable for residents, aged care workers and visiting family members.
Things like clear signage, wide and unobstructed pathways, plenty of communal mixed-age spaces and integrating assistive technology whenever possible (and relevant) can significantly enhance the usability of a space.
Usable and accessible spaces can reduce reliance on assistance and so empower older Australians to be more independent.
Intergenerational connection
Design can play a crucial role in fostering community engagement within an aged care setting.
A well-run co-design workshop can bring people of all ages together, not only to give different perspectives to the problem being discussed but also to provide time and space for intergenerational conversation and social connection.
These types of interactions not only enrich the lives of older Australians but also promote wider societal inclusion and understanding.
Expand the conversation
While understanding the needs of the end user is paramount it’s just as important to hear from others in the sector.
Expand the conversation by speaking with aged care workers, family members, health care SMEs, government workers, for example.
The more you understand a problem from different perspectives the more chance there is for intuitive, empathetic and successful solutions.
Real-time solutions
Like everyone, the needs of the aged care population are diverse and constantly evolving. This means that the systems, products and services supporting them need to evolve with them.
Implementing flexible design processes that allow time for rounds of feedback and iterations will help ensure any design solutions remain relevant and effective.
Needs will, of course, change over time, which is why ongoing user research is an integral part of an organisation’s governance process.
Putting people at the heart of policy
The shift to a human-centred aged care system isn’t just about policy change – it’s about reimagining how we support older Australians to live with dignity, autonomy, and connection.
By embedding human-centred design principles into every aspect of reform, we can create spaces, services, and experiences that genuinely reflect the diverse needs of those using them.
Ongoing collaboration and research will be key to ensuring aged care remains adaptable and responsive to the challenges of the time.
Let’s hope funding and focus remains directed at the sector as we shouldn’t have had to wait 28 years for something so irretrievably broken, yet so integral to Australian life, to be fixed.
