Designing Playful Artefacts for People Living with Dementia: A Methodological Approach with Undergraduate Students

Abstract

This paper reports on a set of methodologies and strategies applied in an academic environment with undergraduate students, in the context of a semester-long project aimed at creating playful artefacts for people living with dementia. This project was carried out under the REMIND—Design for People with Dementia research and resulted from a partnership between Lusofona University and Memória de Mim Daycare Center, an Alzheimer Portugal service. Its main goal was to design artefacts based on biographical and cultural characteristics of the Center's users. In addition, it aimed to introduce concepts of social design and inclusive design in academic learning through practice in real contexts. The students had regular direct contact with health professionals from the Center, developed extensive research on dementia, main symptoms, and forms of manifestation, and gathered a set of biographical and cultural information that allowed the design of artefacts potentially more oriented to the interests and characteristics of the Center’s users. These artefacts were created according to a set of premises, namely, accessibility, flexibility, and inclusiveness in the forms of use; focus on the users’ experience, knowledge, and interests; cognitive stimulation; encouragement of communication/conversation among users. In this paper, the methodologies used, positive aspects and constraints of the work process, and results obtained are reported, aiming at the replicability and continuity of learning practices integrated into social and community contexts.