A friend wrote me today to ask advice about his aging dad’s tech life. Dad has Alzheimer’s. Dad and Mom each owned their own PC, but now they need to downsize and share a PC as they move into an assisted living facility. Mom is worried about sharing her PC; Dad, in his forgetfulness, may “mess things up on the computer.” And while there are more secure programs, the family was concerned about moving Dad from his well-loved AOL mail account for fear that he couldn’t learn any other.

These are the dilemmas we’ll be facing more and more often as the aging of America begins in earnest. There are 78 million boomers and they’re going to need a lot of assistance as they move from geeks to geezers. Their electronics will be their lifeline, communications, and entertainment—but support will be required.

At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show I worked with a team that created two events—one that looked at boomers and their technology (The Silvers Summit) and another that looked at kids and technology (KidsatPlay). Though unintended, what struck me in the end was how similar the needs of kids and older adults are when it comes to technology. As we age we regress in all sorts of ways. It only makes sense that tech is one of them.

The irony is that kids’ electronics and seniors’ electronics are treated as two very different parts of the consumer electronics industry. Kids need special cellphones on training wheels. Kajeet and my MobileWatchdog are two good examples of kids’ phones and services. For seniors, there are phones like Great Call’s Jitterbug and ClarityLife.

GenerationOne—primarily a high-tech healthcare company—caught on to the synergies between kids and seniors. They have phones that remind you to take your meds, but they also have Firefly that allows Mom and Dad to limit who you call and who calls you. Point taken. It might be time to combine the sensibilities and experiences of both kids’ and boomer technology.

Big Buttons, Big Keys, Big Mouse Cursor, and More

For both kids and seniors less is more. Less features, less buttons, less accidental results. Researchers are already finding out that young kids do serious harm to their hands when clutching an adult sized mouse. I’m sure arthritic fingers don’t find the mouse a great tool either. Voice commands, large fonts, and large cursors are now part of the PC operating system world, but very few seniors (or kids and their parents) know how to take advantage of these. Young kids can’t attend to screens full of stimuli all fighting for attention; neither can seniors. Simplify how many on-screen elements young kids need to attend to; remove half of the buttons and features for seniors. Most will be thrilled if you can cap it at reading their email and checking a few favorite websites.

Simplicity

You may think an iPod is an ergonomic miracle, but a young child or elder struggles. These devices are not exactly intuitive. Designing products that work as expected seems like a no brainer, but it’s tough. Consider designs like Abbee, an Internet radio from Myine Electronics. The Flip video cameras with their four directional buttons and retractable USB for moving movies to the PC is handled equally well by eight-year-olds and 80-year-olds. Big buttons, simple choices. (And for kids, better add indestructibility.)

Service Industry In-Waiting

The sandwich generation—caught between children and aging parents are going to be doing a lot of the setup for their charges on both sides of the age continuum. They’ll be the ones keying in their parent’s contacts and adding controls to protect their kids from pornographic websites. A service industry should be chomping at the bit to shoulder some of the tech support.

What about learning? Both kids and seniors need to work at their brain fitness—the first at creating those brain grooves, the second at keeping them. Programs like Dakim’s Brain Fitness with its mind exercises and Whoosh Learning, which provides kids with practice in the basics, are quite similar. Why not let them share intergenerationally?

Control Technology

Finally, we build safe fences for kids on the Internet, protecting them from things that are totally age inappropriate. But what about seniors who tend to be some of the most trusting, least sophisticated groups on the web? Accidental purchases, money transactions, and emails need to be safeguarded against.

Product development and manufacturing is expensive and in this economy you want to look for any economies of scale. I’d start by looking at kids and seniors and see if you might create a product that works across the generations.