Designing a graphical userinterface of an easy-to-usevideophone for people withmild dementia

Abstract: In Alzheimer association’s clinique practice, there was a need to communicate with people with mild dementia. Videophone is considered as one of the best assistive communication tool for these people since video communication is not only a tool to break an isolation caused by the disease, but also a powerful way to help people demonstrate their ideas and understand what is said in a conversation with pictures, signs and body language. Therefore, an easy-to-use videophone for people with mild dementia is needed. The goal of this master thesis is to design a graphical user interface (GUI) of an easy-to-use videophone for people with mild dementia according to their characteristics and difficulties of using everyday technology. User centered design (UCD) was used in the design. To get familiar with the user, literature research was conducted before design. Low-fidelity prototype was created. With the help of Karolinska institute’ research group on people with dementia, the prototype was refined twice. Based on the refined low-fidelity prototype, an interactive prototype with navigation, sound and animation effect was created. A usability testing was conducted on older adults with this interactive prototype. In addition to the GUI of functions for people with mild dementia, GUI of functions for other care givers was also created and presented in this master thesis.