Sharing Memories: Co-Designing Assistive Technology with Aphasic Adults and Support Staff

This article describes how for people suffering from aphasia, everyday verbal and bodily interpersonal communication is challenging. To increase aphasics' ability to share memories, an assistive technology (the MemoryBook) was conceptualized based on explicit, observable and tacit knowledge gathered from the practices in which it was to be contextualized and through a close partnership between aphasics and their caretakers. The underlying design methodology for the MemoryBook is a participatory design manifested through the collaboration and creations by two aphasic residents and one member of the support staff. The idea of the MemoryBook is materialized, and inspired by a photo album, which uses photos and audio recordings to present memories digitally. The MemoryBook was evaluated and found to be a useful approach to a wicked problem of allowing aphasics to digitally capture and communicate memories without caretaker intervention.