Participatory Design with Amnesiacs

Using participatory design, the researchers have developed an electronic memory aid tool for amnesiacs to orient themselves when they feel disoriented. The tool was originally designed to enable the amnesiacs to gain independence and confidence in managing situations when disoriented, however during a 3-week study it was discovered that the tool was also used to manage short-term memory tasks.

Several important concepts were detailed in the research study, the most important was the use of structuring the training sessions for the evaluators because of their short-term memory loss. Other details, such as sensitivity to device acceptance and acknowledging that iterative design with the evaluation population would be difficult were also considered.

For me, I thought that the design of the application was clever because it identified that there were similar existing programs already available, but discussed their deficiencies with those that are amnesiacs. The design also limited the input to just the essential information – when, what, where and who – and I can see the tool used by those without amnesia in aiding with quicker input and recall.