Memory Keeper
Memory Keeper (Minnesbäraren) is a theoretical product that enables elderly people record their experiences and wisdom to pass on to later generations. It allows its elderly users to input audio and pictures, which means it is not exactly a technological marvel. The marvel, however, is that it brings this technology to a new, technology-frightened user group, through a product meticulously designed with the users themselves.
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Memory Keeper is shaped like a book, but is actually a computer. But no need to use the 'c'-word: the book form factor hides the technical aspects of the device and is more familiar for elderly users, who think they are too old to use new technology. |
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Opening the device, we see it has two touch screens, one on each side of the page. In tests users were surprised at how simple it was to use a mocked-up touch screen. |
| Topics are shown on the left side. They suggest what to talk about and help organize recordings. |
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The contents within each topic are shown on the right side:
Users record into virtual cassette tapes, which can be manipulated using common tape recorder controls (record, stop, and play). A status rectangle guides the user with instructions and other information. A slideshow of all the pictures that correspond to the current tape is played in the rectangle. |
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Pictures can be brought into Memory Keeper using a simple scanner box. Place the box over a picture, press the button, and the picture is added to the slideshow of the current tape. |
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Later, younger generations can play back the contents of Memory Keeper in a variety of media: its contents can be converted into a PowerPoint slideshow; into a manuscript using speech-to-text; or into other formats that have yet to be invented. |
A Handful of Design Decisions
Examples of design decisions that illuminate just a few of the ways we stretched our thinking to develop a technical product for the elderly:Thinking inside-out: Controlled Vocabulary
We had to be very careful about the words we used to describe the product during the design process: technical words immediately confused and turned off our users. We had to explain technical aspects using metaphors that our users could grasp, effectively learning a new language:- How should we scroll through information? You mean: how can we see other pages of information?
- Are those audio files? No, they are just cassette tapes!
- Is that a flat panel display? No, it's just a thin TV screen!
That's inside-out thinking that brings new technology to older audiences.
Thinking upside-down: Bringing in Pictures
How to bring physical pictures into a digital device?- A flatbed scanner is out of the question--it would require users to tear apart their carefully constructed photo albums
- Handheld scanners are difficult for aged hands to use
- Taking digital photos of pictures is awkward and hard to understand
That's upside-down thinking that opens doors.
Thinking backwards: 'Stop' instead of 'Pause'
Users voiced their difficulty remembering facts in the middle of telling stories; for example, recalling the name of a person or place. They wanted to be able to pause recording while they tried to remember.So we needed a stop button. Or was it a pause button? We designers thought in terms of CD and MP3 players where the stop button works like a harder pause button that rewinds to the beginning of a recording. But our elderly users thought in terms of tape recorders, where the stop button does not rewind: stop is effectively the same as pause.
The customer is always right: we built our device with a single stop button that maintains the position in the recording.
That's backwards thinking that makes sense.