The PhotoScrabbler prototype is a slowly transitioning and gently fading slideshow of Flickr images that change to reflect the words created with wooden Scrabble tiles on a letter holder. It was designed as a way of bringing the joy of exploring Flickr to small groups of people living with dementia in an Adult Day Centre. It is hoped that this open and playful design will fuel diverse conversations and become a point of interest. The aim was to create a crafted design that is sociable and incorporates interactions that are familiar, un-intimidating and easily shared by small groups of people who don’t use digital technology. We found people needing encouragement to get hands on with other designs and so hope that the use of Scrabble tiles will invite people to interact due to the tactility of the wooden pieces and a playful tendency for people to make words out of lettered tiles. Words can range from open-ended terms that bring up unexpected images (i.e. laugh or rush) to more specific terms such as particular towns and cities of interest (i.e. Tynemouth or London).
The lettered tiles have a small resistor inside them that is connected to two magnets that make contact with the magnets on the letter holder. I then identify letters with unique resistance values. When you bring the lettered tile to the holder it is drawn towards it due to the magnets and makes a gentle but satisfying physical click sound. With each new word Flickr is searched for the most popular images and these are then filtered.
Read More
