Memorabilia is an intelligent iPad application for people with dementia with the purpose of inducing emotional memories for reminiscence. The app uses memories associated with locations and music based on personal data provided by family, caretaker and friends.
The history of music development and movements provide insights about how classical and romantic era music was dominated by invention of piano and phonograph. Both the inventions enabled composers to capture music and reproduce it successfully. These music compositions were created to make the audience remember.
The UX strategy was based on associative memory between music and locations (with weak ties to events and time). The central link being emotions, which have strong retention rate in people with dementia.
The guidance in the app is provided by a chatbot like feature which embodied the conversational UX of the caretaker (familiar to the user)
The location takes the user to the concert audio / music associated to their past memories. These are populated by personal data and if not present based on their previous usage.
Brain-straining is provided in between the experience with a card based memory game which are associated with the location (imagery). This helps in nudging the user into using problem-solving cognitive skills associated to emotions.
The songs are populated by family members, friends and caretakers remotely. This way, they actively participate whenever they remember their emotional memories.
The app was developed as an HTML/CSS prototype to be tested at Dementia care centers. 8 participants were tested with 5 positive, 2 neutral and 1 negative feedback. The test set-up was particularly challenging due to difficulty in conversation. Hence video annotations were used to determine the facial expressions in combinations with qualitative data.
