Stannah took the stigma out of stairlifts – and made them work better, too.
Admitting you need help with the stairs is akin to a male driver admitting he’s lost and needs directions. The embarrassment factor associated with both means that both groups have tended to keep quiet and struggle (not-so-manfully) on.
Until September 2005, that is. Stannah has been a market leader in selling stairlifts to the public since 1975, but managing director Jon Stannah realised they had to change the product in order to match their clients’ – and future clients’ – aspirations.
“Stairlifts have always been a negative purchase,” he admits, “which has limited their acceptance in the marketplace. Their image has always been medical, functional. But we realised that, quite soon, our clients will be of the Mick Jagger/David Bowie generation and they’ve been brought up differently to their parents: they haven’t had to be frugal, and they want more fashion and lifestyle out of their products.”
But how to make stairlifts cool? Stannah decided to enlist the help of design firm Seymourpowell to reposition the product to appeal to baby-boomers who want to grow old (slightly) disgracefully. The brief was to do for stairlifts what designers had done for spectacles over the last 20 years: replace ‘decrepitude’ with ‘lifestyle choice’.
Seymourpowell’s first step was to conduct an extensive ethnographic study of users, filming the clients talking about their stairlifts and using them. “We discovered a disparity,” says senior designer Mike Webster. “Users said they were very happy with the product, but our footage showed them struggling to use it.”
The approach to bringing stairlifts into the 21st century became two-pronged: to address the ergonomic issues thrown up by the research, and then to reposition the stairlift away from its institutional, medical image.
The result was the new modular-based two-chair system, Solus and Sofia, launched in September 2005. Designed to be more like contemporary pieces of furniture than obtrusive medical devices, Sofia is an update of the traditional chair, with a choice of woven wool or vinyl seats in contemporary colours, while Solus is more minimalist, offering a shorter, more discreet seat back and seat options including cocoa- and slate-coloured leather.
Ergonomist Steve Rutherford, from the University of Birmingham, was brought in to oversee product changes including an improved swivel dismounting system, more intuitive controls and better seatbelts. “The previous seatbelts were modified car belts, so the user had to twist right round to use them,” says Webster. “Now we’ve patented a design which fits under the arms of the chair and sits in front of the user, so it’s much easier to use.”
Stannah is already reaping the benefits – Solus won the Golden Trophy of Design at Parisian design and construction expo Batimat – and a new advertising campaign launched in January is designed to tackle head-on the stigma associated with the product. “We wanted to get away from the Thora Hird, blue-rinse stereotype and appeal to the influencers, such as the clients’ children,” says Stannah. TV ads, created by Leagas Delaney, hit home hard, but humour softens the blow: “There are two difficult conversations to have with your parents... one’s about the birds and bees, the other is apples and pears.” Another ad runs: “If you thought it was hard leaving home at 18, try doing it at 72.”
As Seymourpowell’s Richard Seymour says: “We have a habit of seeing disability as an ‘us and them’ issue. Yet we’re all on the same basic continuum. It may be your mum today, but it’s you tomorrow, so we take a much more inclusive view when we’re designing products. It’s humiliating enough for anyone to have to admit to themselves they can no longer do the things they used to do, so our approach tries to ensure we don’t add to the problems associated with dignity and self-respect.”
| Percentage of total UK population aged 65+ |
% |
| 2004 |
 16 |
| 2014 |
18.1 |
| 2044 |
24.7 |
Article first published in Design Council Magazine, Issue 2, Summer 2007