This case addresses the new opportunities and challenges in design and marketing to customers who are elderly or have disabilities. A product manager learns that Leviton's wall switches are favored over less expensive competitive products by homeowners with limited vision or dexterity. With the help of a federal center on disability research, she convinces her managers to develop a marketing program to promote these features to this large and growing market segment. Leviton's in-house marketing department prepares a promotional campaign modeled on a previous successful niche marketing program. The research center staff warns that treating elders and people with disabilities as a niche market will cause the program to fail. They recommend emphasis on the "universal design" appeal of Leviton's products to children as well as elders, able-bodied as well as disabled. The product manager must choose a direction for the program based on either the research center's experience with this new market or her own company's marketing expertise.

Supplements the case.