The Cognitive Design course at Umeå Institute of Design (UID) 2016 was aimed at generating understanding on what it is like to have dementia, and by doing so, the hope was for people to be more lenient towards dementia patients and their carers. Students where asked to “Design an experience to foster empathy for dementia patients.” This resulted in a small exhibition of experiences; walking in the footsteps of a dementia patient setting the table, following a recipe, using a keyboard and an illustrative experience of the disintegration of the mind.
During the duration of the six week course students were introduced to interaction and design principles and methods. They had a long conversation with Per Lundgren, dementia nurse for over 37 years. Per (aka Pelle) introduced them to the disease by very moving storytelling — many of his anecdotes are featured throughout this document. It was clear that the students themselves were unaware of the extreme and often bizarre expression Alzheimer’s disease can have. Encouraged not to try and fix dementia, but to help people understand what the disease does through designing experiences that put us in dementia’s shoes, they sought out users, interviewed patients and carers and prototyped.
Shown here are photographs of the experiences they designed. The experiences were exhibited in the atrium of UID and open to all. Considered the limited time the students had, as well as little of no prior design experience, they tackled the problem enthusiastically and managed to create meaningful experiences.
Disintegration
Antonina Koudriavtseva, Suthan Logeswaran, Svitri Magnusson
It is not uncommon for people suffering from dementia to have difficulties communicating and understanding the outside world and vice versa.
This experience is designed to illustrate these difficulties, and ultimately, attempts to induce associated feelings of this disintegration.
The Table Project
Carl Vinberg, Emil Eriksson, Karl Åkerlund, Tom Menchini
The purpose of this project is to show the difficulties of everyday life when things do not behave the way you are used to. Dementia changes the way you perceive your surrounding
Stupid Keyboard
Emil Holback, Ivar Högström, Hannes M. Lindberg
The goal of this project is to create empathy and understanding for the frustration of losing basic everyday abilities. The keyboard is a good device to use for exemplifying this. Virtually everyone uses a keyboard in their everyday life, yet few reflect on the amount of skill needed to operate one in an efficient manner. In our Stupid Keyboard we have tried to switch places of just enough keys to impair one’s typing. This would create a feeling of confusion, but doing so without breaking the illusion of a perfectly normal and harmless keyboard.
Strange Object
Malcolm Evefors, Fredrika Högberg, Helena Jonsson, Lisa Lundgren
A common effect that dementia has on the human mind is the loss of memory related to procedures and tools. Our aim with this exhibit is to emulate how a person with dementia might feel when they can’t remember the purpose of an everyday object.
