Getting into the Living Memory Box: Family archives & holistic design

Family memories in the home: contrasting physical and digital mementos

“…partners in life), are asymmetric with parents taking responsibility, providing security and care (Dalsgaard et al 2006). A similar dynamic is true of memories, with children focused on the self, and parents feeling a duty to preserve mementos from their children's everyday lives (Stevens et al 2003). The variety of objects kept is huge: artefacts and artworks, clothes, photographs, videos.…”

“…The Memory Box (Frohlich and Murphy, 2000) used a jewellery box metaphor to associate a recorded narrative with a souvenir. The Living Memory Box (Stevens et al 2003) supported the collection, archiving and annotation of family memories. An ethnographic study investigated the "who, what, where, when and why of [parents] saving memories of their child's life".…”

Tangible Computing in Everyday Life: Extending Current Frameworks for Tangible User Interfaces with Personal Objects

“…As these recollections are often associated with photos and artefacts, it was decided to build a Digital Photo Browser with graspable objects, in the shape of souvenirs, as physical carriers for virtual data. (The recently published Living Memory Box Project [36] is similar in this respect.) Another reason for using artefacts as Graspable User Interfaces was the result of a study [19] showing that souvenirs can serve as memory cues to its owners.…”

“…Since Graspable User Interfaces in the home can be used by any type of user, e.g., people who do not have any PC-experience, the system and in particular the graspable objects should make clear, in one way or another, how they should be used. It is most clear to the user if she can come up with the digital associations and the graspable objects, such as in POEMs [39], the Living Memory Box [36] and the souvenirs of Section 2. Although Ullmer and Ishii [41] do not address "overloading" in their "emerging frameworks"-paper, this concept might explain partly the usefulness of their so-called "associative" category (besides the statement already made about the use in-home).…”

An internet of old things as an augmented memory system

“…Findings of the Living Memory Box project [15] equally highlight the value of storytelling and propose that digital memory technologies should enable 'the inclusion of practically any object' (p.215) in this process. In another study, a 'cultural probe' [16] was used to explore what kind of past experiences people would want to remember and why [17].…”