User manual
Designers and healthcare professionals have different knowledge, experiences and skills in personalising dementia care. These two disciplines are, at the moment, quite separated.
The Know-me toolkit aims to bridge this gap, as it can be used by both designers and healthcare professionals, either together or independently. It also contains literature reviews from both the medical and design literature as the scientific background, which makes it suitable for training and education.
The four tools in the Know-me toolkit are capability cards, co-design guide, data exploration guide and person-centred canvas. We will use the double diamond model as a reference to inspire you about how these tools might fit in the design process. This manual is only for inspiration, feel free to use these tools whenever and however you see fit.
Discover
Capability cards
At the beginning of this phase, you may scan through the capability cards to get an awareness about the possible capability limitations of the elderly. You are recommended to frame capability limitations in a positive way, such as one’s remaining capabilities, focus on what the elderly can still do.
In the field study (e.g. co-design session), you can use these cards to guide your interactions with people with dementia, and you can write your insights on corresponding cards. For example, when you notice a person with dementia tends to get distracted by her surroundings, you could refer to the cards about what you could do to mitigate this. Then you may write about what you have observed when you followed the instructions on the cards or something novel that you have done to help the person stay engaged.
If you have taken photos and videos during your field study, you could also cluster them around the capability cards. This is to help you contextualise capabilities of people with dementia who you are designing for in their daily lives. A tip is to label each participant in your data so that you will not mix the results (e.g. who did what). The capability cards are categorised into sensory-, cognition-, and movement-oriented, which are colour-coded accordingly.
Co-design guide
Co-designing with people with dementia early-on in the design process could help you to get first- hand information about what they need and like. If you plan to carry out a co-design session, you are advised to read thoroughly through the co-design checklist beforehand, pick out what are helpful for your project from the checklist and make a plan for the session.
You could refer to this checklist if you are questioned about if people with dementia can participate in co-design and what could be the benefits of the participation for them.
Data exploration guide
Sensor data can be collected continuously and unobtrusively over a long time. Combining qualitative data gathered by traditional user research and these sensor data might bring you a new perspective about people with dementia and their living context.
For example, you could identify patterns and trends within a day and over days for the person and the care team, which could lead to insights that even the care team does not know. You don’t have to implement fancy devices to do so. Quantitative and qualitative data are prevalent in the nursing home.
From blood pressure measurement to thermometer in the room, from care plans to daily reports, and you could also bring some simple instruments. For example, you can measure sound level in decibels with your phone, there are a wide range of Apps developed for this purpose.
Person-centred canvas
In this phase, you may scan through the canvas to get an idea about what types of information are needed for you to design for personalised dementia care and to familiarise yourself with non- pharmacological interventions developed for people with dementia. These non-pharmacological interventions are developed for helping people with dementia with their behavioural and psychological symptoms, which mainly touch upon the emotional aspects of living with dementia.
With these interventions, you could start to reflect: what could be learned from each intervention? what could go wrong with each intervention? Thinking in terms of the three capability categories (see capability cards) may help you with the reflection. Then you could move on to think about how to personalise each intervention to prevent it from going wrong. You may also ask yourself: what additional information do you need to know?
Define
Person-centred canvas
You may use the canvas to guide you visualize and present relevant information and insights you gathered about a person with dementia in the discover phase, which will help you to define the problem. You could fill in a few canvases if you are not designing for one person. In this way, you can find the commonalities and differences between your users.
Capability cards
When you fill in the canvas, you may refer to the capability cards that you used in the discover phase to help you recall your observations, reflections and insights.
Develop
Person-centred canvas
If you would like to co-design with the care team in this phase, you may use this canvas to facilitate the care team to recall the types of information and insights that they know about their residents.
Capability cards
While you are developing your concepts, you can have the capability cards around to remind you about the possible limitations of the elderly.
Deliver
Co-design guide
When you try out your initial prototypes with people with dementia, you may apply the same advice listed in the co-design checklist. This is because in both cases (discover and deliver phases) you would like to gain first-hand information about the needs and likes of people with dementia by directly interacting with them.
Data exploration guide
If you are interested in the long-term effect of your intervention, then the data exploration guide could help. For example, how many times is this intervention offered to the residents in a week? how long does each resident interact with the intervention? Embedding some simple sensors in your interventions will help you to collect these data remotely.