Trove V1 article: Gray, S., Hahn, R., Cater, K., Watson, D., Meineck, C., & Metcalfe, T. (2019, June). trove: A digitally enhanced memory box for looked after and adopted children. In Proceedings of the 18th ACM International Conference on Interaction Design and Children (pp. 458-463).
Trove V2 article: Gray, S., Hahn, R., Cater, K., Watson, D., Williams, K., Metcalfe, T., & Meineck, C. (2020, April). Towards a design for life: Redesigning for reminiscence with looked after children. In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 1-14).
Physical objects are often a tangible link to people's past and these objects can be stored in memory boxes which can be combined with the life-story books created for looked after and adopted children, so that it can solve the problem of narrative imbalance the current looked after and adopted children are facing when it comes to life-story books.
Keywords: Children; Life Story Work; Tangible UserInterfaces; Social Care
Life-story books are required by UK law by such great idea faced narrative that children disagreed with because it is created by their caretaker.
Memory boxes represents a safe space for important objects that tells a story and are used since the origins of society dating back to the 1500s.
Intro
Troves are needed because there is a trauma unprocessed from life-story book that could be detrimental for the growth of looked after and adopted children; especially when the number of them has risen more than 4%.
Troves give a physical attachment and an explanation for children who are having their identity continuously fixing and evolving.
Troves allow physical objects either good, cultural or bad that the children are attached to. And this allows correct narration and good quality compare to life-story books.
Proof of Concepts (Design Objectives)
DO1: It is a storage space with audio insert and playback.
DO2: The audios can be tagged and the tags can be attached to the objects.
DO3 & DO4: The space is private and light for carrying.
DO5: Designed to be gender-neutral and is diamond shape to creates it own value instead of a simple storage object.
Trove Work Flow
Research Participants
Research Methods & Analysis
Results and Discussions
Design of the trove depends on whether it is for Looked After Children or Adopted Children and from this also emerge the balance of privacy between the children and their caretakers.
The design of troves gives positive result such as broaching difficult conversations of the past, encouraging story-telling and reflection but extended support like caregivers contributing separate and impromptu audio records on the side about the children to bring more narratives too.
Conclusions
While the results are promising for the proof of concept, there should be more research on different use cases, contexts, cultures, nuanced requirements.
This gap could be supplemented by user-centered redesign of the current prototype.
Physical objects are often a tangible link to people's past and these objects can be stored in memory boxes which can be combined with the life-story books created for looked after and adopted children, so that it can solve the problem of narrative imbalance the current looked after and adopted children are facing when it comes to life-story books.
Keywords: Children; Life Story Work; Tangible UserInterfaces; Social Care