Reverie

Concept & physical prototypes

A memory box and audio album for sharing personal stories with caregivers.

Role: Designer
Skills: User research · Physical prototyping · Interaction design

Finalist · Student DesignVictorian Premier's Design Awards · 2023

01 / Problem

Start with the person, and their memories.

Reverie explores how familiar objects, textures, photographs and sounds could support conversations between people living with Alzheimer's and their caregivers. The aim was a personal reminiscence kit that a loved one could assemble around someone's own life.

Problem

Start with the person, and their memories.

An open Reverie album with family photographs and a textured cover beside the memory box. — The kit brings personal photographs, voices and keepsakes together.

Process

Listen, sketch, then put materials in people's hands.

A design sprint, sketches and conversations with people in the care sector shaped the concept. During one-to-one interviews, a tactile board helped participants describe textures and the memories they brought to mind.

A conversational questionnaire, developed with a GP, explored familiar people, places, interests and sounds. These details informed what a caregiver could put in the kit.

A tactile research board with samples of fabric, wood, metal, cork and other materials. — A sensory board used in interviews about texture and memory.

Challenges

Make the personal parts replaceable.

The box needed interchangeable textures, a sleeve that could be washed, and an album with audio built into its pages. Physical prototypes explored those details with a plywood box, fabric sleeves attached with Velcro, and cardboard album pages connected to a speaker.

Workshop photographs of plywood cutting, box assembly and a fabric-covered Reverie prototype. — The plywood proof of concept and removable fabric sleeve.

Outcome

One kit, assembled around one life.

The concept combines a memory box, an audio album and a conversational questionnaire. A website configurator lets loved ones choose the box's size, colour and texture, then arrange photographs, names and recordings in the album.

The proposed box uses recycled plastic; the physical proof of concept uses plywood. The album also acts as the lid. Caregiver testing was identified as a next step, so the work shown here does not establish a clinical outcome.

Reverie concept render showing the box with its textured sleeve partly unfastened. — The proposed box with a removable sleeve.

Learning

A texture can lead to a story.

Most participants in the texture interviews connected a sample with a remembered object or association. That observation supported the personalised approach. Further feedback from caregivers and support workers was the next step for the draft questionnaire.

Project notes & sources

Recognition year shown. Design dates to add.