Context

The main focus of technological solutions targeted for PwDs focus on "alleviating the burden of care”. This functional approach of technology focuses on the clinical & decline aspects of dementia. It has the tendency to further problematize disabilities or emphasize frailty, no matter how well-intentioned the initiatives are. Additionally, it often fails to address PwDs' needs to have social contact with others or be more actively engaged with their lives as opposed to having their health monitored.

Since the challenge provided to us was open to take any one of many directions, we decided to move away from the functional approach as we uncovered  that designing for PwDs' wellbeing has a positive impact on health and therefore, increases the chance of living longer at home.

Data analysis

Empathy Maps

From the qualitative data gathered, we had 2 stakeholders in mind: young PwDs and informal carers and built an empathy map for each to help us prioritize design goals based on PwDs.
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Young PwDs were our target group while informal carers were secondary stakeholders. While we initially wanted to empathize with the latter to make sure that their needs aren't prioritized over PwDs' (as they tend to be more vocal than PwDs) during participatory design approaches, we realized during our user research that both stakeholders feel the need to connect.

Synthesis & insights

In order to structure all the data collected into digestible chunks of information, I decided to head to our log of findings, group the information and synthesize it. I then mapped our key insights to user needs & user stories so that all the team would be on the same page and to better strategize our process.

Concepting & Testing

Ideation & co-design

We conducted a series of ideation sessions within both online & offline and got to 2 main concepts:
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The fun channel: A closed social media platform where family & friends can share 3 types of content: (a) what the person is doing now; (b) a random inspiring topic generated by the App and (c) music sharing. The App can be accompanied by a ‘picture frame’ where the content can be displayed on a larger screen.Dance box: a radio-like device that has 2 controllers per person. Informal carer and PwD can upload their favourite music onto the radio and need to pick the controllers and dance to generate the music. We also carried co-design sessions online with the goal to build on our current concepts. The sessions comprised 2 main tasks: think of & rank activities based on frequency and enjoyment, a critique session of our concepts.

The Dance Box concept was preferred during the co-design sessions and, based on feedback provided by participants and our own design considerations, we evaluated the concepts and decided to further iterate over the Dance Box.

Final concept: the Touchbox

The Touchbox is a connection & musical interface. It invites a PwD and their informal carer to sit together and generate music through physical contact. The design creates an intimate moment of connectedness in the present moment as it allows PwDs and informal carers to connect in an intimate way by touching hands in order to play the music. The interface consists of 2 sensors at the top of the box, close to each other. It generates the music only  when both the PwD and their informal carer put their hands on top of them, as soon as the hands are lifted the music stops.When covered, the sensors send the signals over wifi using the MQTT Protocol. A Raspberry Pi receives these signals and plays songs either saved directly to the RPi or opening Open Spotify.

Testing

From this moment on, we treated the process as an interaction design challenge and decided to test 2 different ways to interact with the box:

1. In a prescriptive manner: PwD and informal carer trigger the song when they cover the sensors, but the moment one or both of them uncover the sensor, the music would stop.
2. In a free-forn manner: Have them trigger the song the same way without any consequence if they uncover the sensors. The music would keep playing until the end OR when they would put the hands back again on top of the sensors.

We performed 2 series of usability tests. The first one was held group of 3 PwDs living in a carehome. They were given only one task:  interact with the box along with one nurse. Since this wasn’t the context in which the Touchbox would live, we had to take all the feedback with a grain of salt. However, the results were reassuring as they all knew how to interact with the box to trigger a song - following the most prescriptive interaction #1. Other observations included:

• No attention was provided to the screen, as it becomes harder to remember the titles of the songs, making it useless.
  
• No attention was provided to buttons that provided more control over the Touchbox (e.g. volume, next song, etc.), participants were really living in the moment touching the box and seeing each other.
  

We did the second usability test in the context of use of the Touchbox, we visited a couple’s home and gave them two tasks: to use the Touchbox to trigger music in the prescriptive manner; then to try it in the free-form manner. Results pointed that:

• They knew how to interact with the box for both interactions.
  
• However, the informal carer preferred the free-form interaction as it would allow her to create a little ‘hand choreography’ with her partner, who followed all her moves. The PwD, on the other hand, found that the choreography could be overwhelming at times.
  

Conclusion

Results of our research point towards the fact that the Touchbox is a concept that has potential among young PwDs. Going back to the insights, the concept proves to be a multisensorial approach that focuses on creating a space for PwDs to participate in an enjoyable activity that conveys social connection with their informal carer. This ultimately can have a positive impact on their well-being and in turn help them live longer in their own homes. It also helps informal carers learn how to connect with their loved one again, in the intimate space of their homes.

An important learning when designing for people living with dementia, vital to reflect upon, is that it remains important to remember that, given the fact that caregivers are more vocal than PwDs, their needs usually end up being met instead of that of the intended target group, people living with dementia. It is therefore crucial to raise questions and carefully analyze which needs are truly that of PwDs. You can check a reflection I wrote about my thoughts on this topic and the ethical approach that guided me throughout this project.