Technologies can support the well-being of people living with dementia in residential care by fostering meaningful interactions through multimodal and playful features. This article presents the evaluation of A Better Visit, an app that aims at engaging residents and visitors in shared activities. We define engagement in terms of dyadic interactions with the interface of the device, and interactions within the social context of the care home. We generated two Motivational Models that describe different perspectives of how people engaged with the system: the first was built with the design team, and the second was built using the first Motivational Model as a sensitising concept for the analysis of data from four care homes that used the app for periods of three months. Our findings show that the facilitation of activities plays a relevant role for engaging in social interaction. We discuss how technologies can contribute to engaging people living with dementia in social interaction: firstly, facilitation can be understood as a concept that is supported by people and technology. Secondly, we discuss the influence of the social context of the setting and the understandings of the individual in how people assess the engagement of the residents in social interaction.

This project aims to foster shared positive experiences between people living with moderate to advanced dementia and their visitors as they may struggle to find topics to talk about and engaging things to do together. To promote a better visit, we trialed a previously developed app that includes eight games with twenty-one residents and their partners or carers across four care centers for three months each. Through interviews and data logging, we found that residents preferred games that were closer to their interests and skills, and that gameplay and cooperation fostered meaningful and shared interactions between residents and their visitors. The contribution of this work is twofold: (1) insights and opportunities into dyadic interactions when using an app and into promoting positive social experiences through technology design, and (2) reflections on the challenges of evaluating the benefits of technology for people living with dementia.

HCI has historically provided little support for moving from fieldwork insights or theories to design outcomes. Having witnessed many students struggle and then justify their designs with a form of marketing hype, we developed a supporting approach of “field theories”. A field theory is a working theory about salient interactions in a particular domain and sensitizing concepts in order to frame design investigations. It is presented visually in a field theory diagram to support succinct communication and critique. Studying use of design prototypes that have been informed by a field theory helps to reflect upon and refine the theory. In this paper we present examples from our HCI classes and reflections based on interviews with students. We discuss how field theories offer an orientation in the spirit of a ‘bricoleur’ who harnesses elements of theory and practice to produce deeper understandings and more fitting outcomes for the task at hand.

Existing methods for researching and designing to support relationships between parents and their adult children tend to lead to designs that respect the differences between them. We conducted 14 Position Exchange Workshops with parents and their adult children, where the child has left home in recent years, aiming to explicate and confront their positions in creative and supportive ways. We designed three co-design methods (Card Sort for Me & You, Would I Lie to You? and A Magic Machine for You) to support participants to explore, understand, empathize, and design for each other. The findings show that the methods facilitated understanding, renegotiating, and reimagining their current positions. We discuss how positions can help consider both perspectives in the design process. This paper seeks to contribute (1) how the notion of positions enables generating understandings of the relationship, and (2) a set of methods influenced by position exchange, empathy, and playful engagement that help explore human relationships.