In the Netherlands, 290,000 people are living with dementia. 80,000 of them live in a care home. Life in these care homes is often monotonous, but all the structure in daily life must still be guided by caregivers. This makes the patients dependent, their brains inactive, and their cognitive decline worse.

To solve this, we went trough a iterative design process where we applied many brainstorming techniques like rapid prototyping, crazy 8s, and the scamper method to design a solution for this problem. We reached out to stakeholders, and conducted interviews with professionals who work in direct contact with our target group. This directed us towards a multiple stakeholder approach, where we not only took the needs of the clients into account, but simultaneously focused on desires of caregivers.
This led us to our final design: the Memophone. The Memophone is a device with one main goal: improving the independence of a individual living with dementia. It is a ambient sound system that plays soundscapes which strongly correspond to a particular part of the day cycle. When people living with dementia make associations between sounds and actions, they become more aware of the time and space they are in. Above that, the Memophone uses volume levels to guide clients to a desired location, making the caregiver’s work less intensive. As a result, people living with dementia will feel less confused and independent, causing a more positive atmosphere and improved quality of life.
The concept of the Memophone was presented using a physical scale model of a care home. Speakers were integrated in the model and played custom soundscapes. This project sparked my interest for inclusive design. By focusing on a target group that has very specific requirements to be able to use a design, I learned that I should not take users for granted. Rather, I have to take a lot into consideration in order to design something accessible for as many people as possible.