Interactive Placemat

For my first research project, I chose the dementia care space as my design research context. After a context exploration, I designed an interactive placemat to research if it could have a positive influence on the eating activities of people with dementia. Observations and interviews indicated that the interactive placemat could offer a positive distraction for people during the eating moments. 

I learned that an initially defined approach might not always reflect the outcomes of the research. For example, I thought that the sounds incorporated in the design would have an influence on my participants. However, this was not evident out of my observations and interviews. Nevertheless, I did find other interesting interactions with my design. This made me realize that it is important to always have an open-minded approach as you are conducting research whilst still having defined a clear research scope. 

Another version of the paper was written and eventually featured at Dementia Lab 2019, which can be found here.