Designing for older adults'life storytelling through a tangible interactive device

There appears to be a mismatch between current interactive media and intergenerational storytelling, which leads to the elderly are often viewed as passive consumers, rather than active creators of story content. In this paper, we present our study aiming to facilitate storytelling of older adults living in the care facilities with their children, driven by the research questions: RQ1: What life stories would the older adults like to share? And RQ2: How to facilitate older adults to tell stories with their children? A research prototype named Slots-story was designed, which integrated functions of memory cue generator, story recording, and preservation. In the field study, eight pairs of participants (each pair consisting of an elderly adult and his/her child) were recruited to use the prototype for around ten days. Semi-structured interviews were conducted both with the elderly and their children. Stories collected were transcribed, and thematic analysis was conducted, which formed the foundation of the insights on the research questions.