I just wanted to recap what has happened in the past two weeks
1) We had the following feedback from our application
– that we consider the audience, when designing our product (our product was seen as too complicated)
Taking this into account Spitzer’s reaching and taking into account the scientific academic Journal that Marcel sent to us, I tried to create a product that was
A) That did not make the user feel as if they were different/stupid or served as a constant reminder of their Alzheimer’s
B) I tried to keep the design as clean and simplified as possible
C) I created two different designs, designed for two target groups (as we had trouble deciding, who we would be our target market) I think our product as something that can be as a therapeutic device by individuals with late on set Alzheimer’s (As research has found, art becomes a medium in which individuals with Alzheimer’s express themselves in later stages of Alzheimer’s as they have often forgotten words etc…)
The specifics of how I addressed these concerns
As I stated earlier, I created two mockups to demonstrate what our product would look for an individual with early on set Alzheimer’s and one mock up dedicated to later stages of Alzheimer’s. I found it was hard to design our product simply because there are various cases and stages of Alzheimer’s, and each person has different needs. But I try to address these needs by creating a design that embodied skeumorphism. I hoped by creating something that emulated material reality, this would allow the product to tap into procedural memory and resonate more with an older generation of users, which is our target market. Furthermore, I tried to include universal signs such as arrows, a question mark, and highlight these signs with words and audio. Hopefully by creating a number of different cues, this will allow the brain to draw on many connections rather than one. As Spitzer talks about his article, individuals who have Alzheimer’s have difficulty remembering because neural connections that allow us access to our memory deteriorate. So, while one neural connection may have been broken, perhaps there are many other paths to access our memory. Which is why I tried to create as many cues as possible rather than relying on one cute, allowing the brain to try to access as many neuron connections as possible. This is similarly demonstrated in Still Alice, in which Alice’s doctors comments that Alice is very intelligent, so while one of her neuron connections may have been severed, she has many other neuron pathways to access the same information.
Tomorrow, I am having a meeting with Jessica. Hopefully, Jessica can provide any insights to the mock up, which will allow me to edit the design.
I will post any feedback she has!
Memory and Techne 