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Aim: This study aims to shift views away from negative perceptions towards aging by exploring the following research question: How are the multiple levels of the gerotranscendence theory influenced by the sustainable behavior and attitude toward the biophilic design of older adults? Background: Improving perceptions of aging is vital for positively impacting both the biological and societal aspects of the global aging phenomenon. Methods: The study utilized a mixed-method design. Initially, 300 older Turkish adults completed self-reported measures including the Gerotranscendence Scale (GS), Pro-environmental Behavior (PB), Environmental Identity Scale (EID), Biophilic Design Importance Level (BDI), and Inclusion of Nature in the Self Scale (INS). Subsequently, the second phase involved diary logs from 30 participants who volunteered during the initial phase. Results: Results indicated that a higher importance level placed on biophilic design was linked to a greater inclusion of nature in the self. Moreover, a stronger interest in nature correlated positively with the gerotranscendence experience. Conclusions: The results bring significant attention to biophilic design, especially its relevance in supporting sustainable environmental behaviors and positive aging., Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Background: Fall hazards in bathroom spaces constitute one of the most critical issues in the daily lives of older adults. Bathroom falls are somewhat different and constrained in nature than those in other parts of a home environment., Objectives: This study aimed to adopt a user-centred approach to explore older adults' general bathroom needs, with a specific focus on showers and bathtubs as the designated activity area., Methods: The authors employed an extended importance-performance analysis (IPA) with a mixed-method research design. Three hundred and eleven older adults participated in a face-to-face IPA questionnaire for the quantitative phase of the study. The authors gathered the qualitative data through open-ended questions from 59 older adults., Results: The authors found positive correlation between older adults' attitudes towards an older-friendly bathroom and the potential for their bathrooms to be fall-free. The IPA calculations identify three key items with higher ratings in both importance and performance: The presence of appropriate artificial lighting, efficient mechanical ventilation and an accessible inside towel rail. Thematic analysis yields four themes: comfort, ease of access, error-proof design and emergency management., Conclusions: The IPA calculations and thematic analysis confirm that older adults' rankings of importance and performance and their corresponding priority levels within the overarching themes indicate the need for these aspects to perform well and justify ongoing investments. The study concludes that addressing fall prevention requires not only designing specific solutions but also utilising appropriate technology in bathing and toileting activities., Implications for Practice: Practitioners in geriatric and gerontological nursing, design, architecture and health care can use the importance and performance priority levels of older adults to guide the development and implementation of fall-free bathroom design. Policymakers can leverage the insights from this research to inform guidelines and regulations related to building codes, accessibility standards and healthcare policies., (© 2024 The Author(s). International Journal of Older People Nursing published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

This study proposed Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) as a tool to elicitate the requirements of elderly to age well and improve the accessibility of home environments. It aims to address the accessibility issues in a case housing environment and provide guidance and design recommendations to designers and architects, who generally have difficulty to obtain information on universally designed housing environments. First, healthy aging concept is introduced. Then, the role of housing accessibility in healthy aging is explored. Later, the methodology is presented. In the findings the importance and satisfaction ratings of 100 Turkish elderly women, which are selected from an exemplary housing environment of the most dense and busiest urban area in Ankara, are analysed. According to results, IPA could be an effective tool to decide how to meet accessibility requirements and maximize home satisfaction. Thus, this study contributes to the design literature by being a first study to explore the applicability of IPA technique in design discipline while eliciting elderly women expectations and accessibility requirements for healthy aging.

This study highlights how heuristic evaluation as a usability evaluation method can feed into current building design practice to conform to universal design principles. It provides a definition of universal usability that is applicable to an architectural design context. It takes the seven universal design principles as a set of heuristics and applies an iterative sequence of heuristic evaluation in a shopping mall, aiming to achieve a cost-effective evaluation process. The evaluation was composed of three consecutive sessions. First, five evaluators from different professions were interviewed regarding the construction drawings in terms of universal design principles. Then, each evaluator was asked to perform the predefined task scenarios. In subsequent interviews, the evaluators were asked to re-analyze the construction drawings. The results showed that heuristic evaluation could successfully integrate universal usability into current building design practice in two ways: (i) it promoted an iterative evaluation process combined with multi-sessions rather than relying on one evaluator and on one evaluation session to find the maximum number of usability problems, and (ii) it highlighted the necessity of an interdisciplinary ad hoc committee regarding the heuristic abilities of each profession. A multi-session and interdisciplinary heuristic evaluation method can save both the project budget and the required time, while ensuring a reduced error rate for the universal usage of the built environments.