MEMO: Designing for the Bereaved

The HCI community has turned the focus toward the End of Life (EOL) [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. However, mostly concerning the management of digital presence after death [1, 5, 7]. Less research has been focused on how people experience bereavement and how technology can support people to cope with loss. This is very relevant, considering that the loss of a loved one and how people go through grief can influence their life. In this paper, we focus on the bereaved and their needs on going through grief and how technology can support this process that we all go through sooner or later in life.

To conduct our study, we took a design thinking process [8]. Through literature review, interviews, and cultural probes with people that had gone through loss, we found that people want to talk and remember the dear bereaved, the beautiful moments, the special objects that relate to that person, and the situated use of those objects. However, they want to share these memories exclusively with people that appreciate the memories the same as them. Together they enter a collaborative remembrance process that alleviates the grief.

Thus, we developed MEMO, the memory box, which incorporates the idea of a shared digital memorial with a tangible interface for material elements, physically positioned in the box. In Sect. 2, we will describe what constitutes the design thinking process and how we applied it in our specific context. Further, we will conclude the paper in Sect. 3 by highlighting some of the main findings and contributions of the paper.

As a methodology for investigating our case, we chose the design thinking process, a five-stage design process proposed by Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford [8]. Design Thinking is defined as “a methodology that provides a solution-based approach to solving problems. It’s extremely useful in tackling complex problems that are ill-defined or unknown, by understanding the human needs involved, by re-framing the problem in human-centric ways, by creating many ideas in brainstorming sessions, and by adopting a hands-on approach in prototyping and testing.” [8]. The definition shows the compatibility of this methodology with our interest in exploring how people go through a loss, what the needs are, and how technology can contribute. The problem we study is unknown or ill-defined, and what we researched were the needs of people gone through a loss and framed the problem on their terms. As stated, the design thinking process is compounded by five stages:

1. 1.

   Empathy – this stage contributes to creating an empathic understanding of the problem the researcher is trying to solve or getting to know better the needs of the user groups studied [8].

2. 2.

   Define – in this stage, the researchers or designers synthesize and analyze the information gathered during the empathy stage. This stage is useful in narrowing down the scope of the research and focusing on a specific problem or issue generated from a close look at people’s real needs. Thus, a statement of a problem in a human-centric way is articulated [8].

3. 3.

   Ideate – in this stage, the researchers or designers ideate new digital solutions to the problem stated in the define stage. The aim is to generate as many ideas as possible. These diverging thinking would then converge once the people involved in the ideation phase should choose what idea to develop further [8].

4. 4.

   Prototype – in this stage, the ideas of the previous phase are used to iteratively generate artifacts that can help in better solving the problem defined [8]. Different categories of prototypes can be built [9].

5. 5.

   Test – in this stage, feedback for the solution is solicited. The aim of this stage is to learn more about the solution and also learn more about the user group needs [8].

How we applied each stage of the design thinking process will be described in detail below.

2.1 Empathy

Our aim in the empathy phase, as also stated above, was to get a deeper understanding of the needs people have during grief, what could help in healing the pain, how, and if technology could contribute. In order to empathize with the user group, we chose to apply three methods: Literature Search, Interviews, and Cultural probes.

Literature Search.

It was relevant for us to understand what other researchers had found out as elements of supporting mourning [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. We followed recommendations from Timmins and McCabe [10] on how to conduct a literature search. We focused on HCI literature regarding the EOL. Among the literature, we have interpreted to be divided mostly into two categories [1]: how to handle the digital presence of people after death [5, 7] and building digital memorials [1,2,3, 6]. Our focus was the same as in [1], “A death in the family and designing technology for the bereaved”. A relevant work that received our attention was the “Penseive Box” by Chaudhari, et al. [4]. They have developed a physical wooden box with a digital screen (tablet) fitted inside, which would present photos, videos, timeline, and so on. The box also had thin LED panels on its edges, which would produce an ambient glow on special occasions. This was a speculative design, so they used it as a provocation to have interviews with users and understand their view, and it was not based on previous research. They found that people appreciate automated memorialization. Moreover, they found out people were not willing to share this kind of box with others. The design thinking process has a different approach on studying a specific phenomenon. The users’ needs and perspectives are explored prior to the solution which can make the prototype closer to what people need.

Knowledge acquired through the literature helped us plan our interviews and cultural probes better by approaching people to involve in the research in a more considerate way and always respect their feelings. Our research was based in Halden, a small town in southeast Norway.

Semi-structured Interviews.

We conducted two semi-structured interviews [11]—the first, with a deacon giving grief counseling in the role of an expert. The second interview was with a twenty-seven years old woman who lost her father when she was ten years old. The interviews’ aim was to gain an insight into how people working with grief looked at it and how people experiencing it were taken care of. Both interviews were audio-recorded, and consent was granted from the interviewees beforehand. The interviews were initially analyzed through content analysis [12].

Interesting insight flourished during the interviews. As we found out from the expert, during grief, people tend to close themselves and have difficulties in sharing their pain with others. Even though help is offered, people hesitate. This was confirmed from our end-user interview, who stated she wouldn’t have preferred to talk to any strangers about her feelings. However, she emphasized that her mother was the main support saying, “my mom has pretty much forced me to talk about it (..) I’m still struggling with a lot today, stuff I think could have been easier if I had resolved certain feelings/issues earlier (..) we have become very close. Now I’m talking to my mom about everything”. Thus, the mother, the closest person to her dad, was the best comfort and help through the grief. They could relieve the pain together. Moreover, in the quote, a call for help was raised. The need to find ways to help people through grief was reinstated.

Cultural Probes.

Were used to get a deeper understanding of the user’s thoughts, feelings, and needs. Cultural probes are a user research method used to inspire ideas in the design process [13]. Probes are “simple objects or prototypes of a design, which are placed in person’s environment to find out about their habits, patterns of communication, and so forth, and hopefully, return with interesting data”. A cultural probe is a kit made up with a variety of artifacts and tasks intended to provide a unique glimpse in people’s lives, values, and thoughts. The aim of our probes was to find out “how to facilitate people’s grief”.

We made a kit of five tasks and artifacts which were given to five participants of both genders in the age of twenty-seven to thirty-five years old where the participants had lost someone to cancer, sudden illness or death by suicide. We used a white and floral theme for all the probes to create a sense of serenity. A summary of the findings from the cultural probes is shown in a probe collage in Fig. 1. The probes involved the following tasks:

• Probe 1: Take pictures of (places, situations, objects, or people) something reminding you of the good memories with the person you’ve lost.

• Probe 2: Whom did you feel comfortable talking to after your experience with loss?

• Probe 3: Write a letter to yourself that you would have liked to receive in that difficult period.

• Probe 4: From 1–5, rate the most important to less important things that would have helped you after losing someone you love.

• Probe 5: Write a postcard for the person you’ve lost. Please write about your relation to the person and when it happened.

Cultural probes summary collage

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2.2 Define

To analyze our data, we used the Empathy Map (EM) method [14] as suitable for data collected during the empathy phase. EM is a method that assists in designing business models according to customer perspectives. It goes beyond demographic characteristics and develops a better understanding of the customer’s environment, behavior, aspirations, and concerns. The EM’s goal is to create a degree of empathy for a specific person or user group by analyzing the data and categorizing them into what people Say, Think, Do, and Feel. The discussion of differences and similarities among these four categories lead to the creation of a set of Needs of the user group and further Insights about the specific problem at hand.

In our empathy map, different needs were highlighted. What was defined as most important was that people need to be more open about their situation and appreciate the good memories because it can make them feel better during the process and in their everyday life. The findings exhibited the importance of taking care of the memories, talking with family and friends, as well as being open about the life situation as the aid to precede the anguish of grief and being able to move on. The relevance of memories and memorials as a way of helping people against the terror of forgetting after the loss of a loved one has been discussed in the literature [15, 16]. Thus, the problem we decided to work further on was “designing a digital tool which can support people to enhance their memories during grief and having the possibility to share these memories with other close people that are part of the family and share the same memories and pain for the bereaved”.

2.3 Ideate

In the ideate phase, we started with brainstorming about possible digital solutions that could satisfy the defined needs of people in the grieving process and alleviate the pain after the loss. After three rounds of brainstorming and sketching and inspired from the work of Chaudhari, et al. [4], we landed on the idea of a memory box we decided to call MEMO, a box which can be the personal and a family companion in the time of a loss and after.

To refine our ideas, we created personas [17], fictional characters representing the users the solution is designed for. Personas are very useful in ideating how the digital solution will be used and integrated into the user’s life. In our case, we created four personas, the husband, mother, daughter, and son of Mary - our persona who had recently passed away. All the personas were going through grief due to Mary’s passing. In order to ideate the usage of our MEMO box, we created scenarios for each persona [18] on how they interacted with possible functionalities of the box. These scenarios were further visualized through storyboards [19], another technique used in ideating or prototyping.

The ideating phase started with divergent thinking, where a set of ideas were discussed and ended by converging the idea of the MEMO box more towards the needs of the people experiencing grief highlighted during our empathy study.

2.4 Prototype

Prototyping was an iterative process. We experimented with different ideas and materials. Moreover, different prototype categories were created [9]. Several experiments with the materiality of the box were conducted. Different materials and digital tools, such as a box made with cardboard to a box made of wood using a laser cutter, were made. Our final prototype is a wooden box that incorporates the idea of a shared digital memorial with a tangible interface for material objects, physically positioned in the box. The box is made of woodcuts in fine lines with a laser cutter. On the front side of the box, a detachable touchscreen is integrated. The box lid is supposed to have an integrated NFC tag reader. However, due to time constraints for prototyping, we used a microcontroller. Each of the box parts has specific functionalities.

• The box itself is in analogy with boxes used to save things from lost ones after their loss, highlighting memorialization.

• The touchscreen has an integrated application developed exclusively for the box. The application was designed in ADOBE XD in order to simulate the possible functionalities. The application serves as a repository of digital traces of memories such as pictures, videos, details regarding events related to the deceased person. The user owning the box has a possibility to log into a website from the computer and populate the repository. The box owner as well has the possibility to control the display of the material. For instance, wedding pictures can be set to be displayed on the wedding day. Another, very relevant functionality is the possibility to share digital content with other family members. The box can be configured into a family package with other boxes, and digital content can be shared from one box to another.

• The lid is related to another functionality in which NFC tags can be populated with digital content and attached to a specific object in the box. When this object with the NFC tag attached is put on top of the box, led lights to signalize the object are being read from the NFC tag reader, and the content is displayed in the touchscreen on the front side of the box as a slideshow.

2.5 Testing

In design thinking, testing is not considered the end. Testing is considered as an opportunity to get feedback from the user about the prototype and get the chance to gain learn more about the users’ needs, the problem, and potential solutions [8]. Thus, we conducted testing in two rounds.

In the first round, we invited three participants, woman (35), man (55), and woman (73), where all of them have experienced the loss of a loved one. The prototype was then still in the form of a card box, as shown in Fig. 2.a. Testing was task-oriented and was conducted in a specific room allowing participants to engage fully in the task without any distractions. The tests were conducted with the thinking aloud-technique and separately. Two of the authors participated in the testing by adapting to the roles of host and observer. Written notes were taken during the test. The data from the testing were analyzed through content analysis [12].

MEMO box changes - Left (a) – cardboard box, Middle (b) – showing the NFC tags functionality and Right (c) showing the sharing function

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In the second round, the prototype had been improved further as shown in Fig. 2.b and c, and the testing was conducted by sharing with the potential users a video prototype (look here) and asking for their feedback on the usability of the solution and the concept the solution represents “a shared digital memorial”. We tested with eight participants from the age of six to seventy-four years old. Written notes were kept from the testing and analyzed through content analysis [12]. Kids involved in the study were asked if they liked the prototype and if they wanted to use it. The influence in the grief process was not discussed with them. However, we found their involvement relevant because kids also can lose people they are very attached to, and they also need even more careful support that a grown-up one.

From the testing, it shows MEMO was appreciated by the users in terms of usability. This because the material (fine Norwegian wood) and the shape (adaptable to shelves) could easily be integrated into people’s homes. Moreover, they told us the box was convenient for being positioned in visible places at home, creating a special place for the person they’ve lost integrated into their everyday life. This can help with the fight and fear of forgetting. However, suggestions for improving user-friendliness were noted and will be taken into consideration further.

Moreover, similar to Chaudhari et al. [4] Penseive box, we found out people prefer having a personalized box because they have individual memories and might not live in the same place. However, in contrast to Chaudhari et al. [4], our participants said they appreciated the sharing functionality. They said sharing memories with the closest family members were extremely relevant while experiencing grief as the family members share the same pain for the person passed. Talking together about the deceased can create a positive feeling helping through the healing process. Hence, we concluded that our MEMO prototype and the idea of a shared digital memorial can accompany people during grief. Our testing participants suggested even if some people during the initial grieving process might not be able to integrate MEMO in their life, they would eventually in time find it interesting and important.

In this paper, we presented the design of MEMO, a wooden box designated to hold both physical and digital objects of the deceased explained in detail in Subsect. 2.4.

The contribution of the paper is in the development of a prototype that serves as a shared digital memorial in times of grieving. These times are usually associated with loneliness and pain. As one of our testing participants stated, our user group involves all the people of the world at any time. Hence, even if only a few people are reached, it will still make a considerable contribution.

Furthermore, we contribute to more knowledge in empathizing and a better understanding of the grieving process and people’s needs in that very dark period of life. Our design process resulted in MEMO, however, our findings can contribute to inspiring other researchers or designers in investigating other options of digital solutions. In the future, we want to experiment with more design alternatives.

Finally, the paper contributes to the HCI community through a detailed description of the design thinking process as an approach that contributes not only to the development of useful prototypes but as well expanding knowledge of specific user groups and their needs and using design as the basis for conducting the research.