INTERACTION DESIGNER & RESEARCHER
PhD Candidate
Systemic Change, Industrial Design
Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e, the Netherlands)


DYNAMORPH
Interactive Table Design for People with Dementia
This project is in collaboration with Vitalis, a Dutch residential care company.
Dynamorph is an interactive table that facilitates touch explorations in collective use of people with dementia living in residential cares. As people with dementia are gradually losing their abilities such as logical reasoning and short-term memories, touch becomes extremely important for them to feel and understand the world around. Dynamorph enhances the sensory stimulations by providing tactile sensory enrichment and giving them something to explore, interact and engage with. The table design can support at most four users interacting at the same time, with each user have one set of zoomorphic interactive objects and a hollowed route link to the center leaf shape pattern filled with colored liquid. The zoomorphic interactive objects are designed to behave animal-like and can give rewarding or negative feedback according to sensed user interactions. The leaf shape pattern in the center of the table works as a bio-feedback interface and intended to calm users to deal with the agitation or aggressive behaviors of dementia. The liquid in centrepiece will pump along with the rhythm of users’ heartbeat (detected through a pulse sensor).