Anchord App
Family museum preserve memories & stories
Visit demo prototype
Anchord App
“
Family memories and stories should be preserved more carefully, pass down from generation to generation
”
Share your story
Upload artwork photos, tell the family story behind it, preview and then send it to the family story collection.
Listen to the family stories
Appreciate different artworks uploaded by different family members in the Family Museum, while enjoying them, they can listen to their own stories about the family.
Collaborative story sharing
Standing from the perspective of different family members to listen to the stories behind, and can share one's own story behind the family art piece.
Accessibility for older adults
Serve the elderly population in service families, the App allows them to adjust text size, color contrast, screen reader, and functional tutorial to help them use it more simply.
The story
I live in a different city from my grandfather. In memory, my grandfather has always been a very dignified person. We hardly ever communicated.
It was not until one time that he told me the story behind a photo of him and his grandmother that our communication became frequent. Through his story, I met a different grandfather.
I found that the family stories established a connection between me and my grandfather, and the generation gap between us is gradually disappearing. However, after living in US, I have almost no chance to listen to grandpa’s story.
So I started to think: How do we preserve family memories and stories？
The problem
Our secondary research reveals that the generation gap is mainly composed of the following three parts:
Cultural barriers
Geographical barriers
Technological barriers
Based on this, we conducted a more in-depth investigation through surveys and user interviews, summarizing the findings of the above research:
85%+
of older generation are willing to share their life stories with their family
3/5
of papers we read for literature review mentioned the importance of medium of storytelling
0/6
of companies we did for market research help older adults preserve memories
1/3
of older generation live with their family
Storytelling
And all these point to the key to solving the problem, which is storytelling.
How might we
Use storytelling around family artifacts to foster meaningful intergenerational communication despite technological, geographic and cultural barriers?
What is storytelling?
Storytelling with AI-assisted content creation & story reading
At first, we believed that the most important aspect of storytelling was the story content, as it serves as a bridge across generations. Therefore, we decided to address this issue from both the input and output aspects of story.
Older adults tell their stories
Family story pool
Younger adults read the story
However, a round of user testing revealed the limitations we encountered in solving this problem: the elderly cannot understand this form of input; Young people are not interested in the news-style story format. The barrier between young and the old generation still exists.
Storytelling with artifact-based card & story listening
We began to reflect on whether our understanding of storytelling was flawed. Inspired by the paper "A qualitative exploration of memory cuing by personal items in the home," we discovered a strong connection between people's memories and stories with artifacts in their homes, just like
Story is the boat
Artifact is the anchor
When I see an artifact, I naturally associate it with the story behind it; At the same time, stories with the voices of family members are more captivating than plain text. Therefore, we believe that storytelling with artifact-based cards and story listening should be used.
Older adults scan and
record their stories
Family story
pool
Younger adults listen to
stories and interact
Another round of user testing tells us that although the storytelling is optimized, compared to plain text, there are still some issues: Scanning objects is an additional burden for the elderly; Tinder-style cards with too many social attribute functions weaken the storytelling feature itself. The barrier between young and the old generation is lower but still exists.
Storytelling with narrative-focused photos & memory preserving
After further research, we found that the real breakthrough in storytelling comes from the emotional connection between grandparents. To deepen this emotional bond, we must focus on the story, minimizing unnecessary interactions. Which is,
Story is the key
Concise is not just simple but focused
Thus, the three main barrier have also been resolved
Cultural barriers
Storytelling itself, with transcript if needed
Geographical barriers
App break the geographical boundary of family storytelling
Technological barriers
Accessibility mode with multiple assistive technology
When I see an artifact, I naturally associate it with the story behind it; At the same time, stories with the voices of family members are more captivating than plain text. Therefore, we believe that storytelling with artifact-based cards and story listening should be used.
Older adults upload photo and
record their stories
Family story
gallery
Younger adults listen to
stories
*Special thanks to my mentor, Nam-ho Park, and Longjie Guo, as well as my teammates, Monica Xu and Amber Lu. Without your support, I would not have been able to complete such a large-scale project.