How People with Blindness Cherish Meaningful Memories

Team

Timeframe

2019 ↝ Ongoing

Keywords

  • Research Through Design
  • Domestic Technology
  • Digital Archives
  • Alternative Outcomes

Outcome

  • ↬

    Long-term Participatory Design project
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    Publications at CHI’21, DIS’22 & CHI’24
  • ↬

    Case study of Alternative Research Outcomes

The Core Idea

Beyond Looking Back explores how people with blindness capture, revisit and share their meaningful life moments. Re-experiencing digital possessions to feel a sense of reminiscence is an essential practice for everyone, but this work largely focuses people with sight. How do people with blindness capture, share, and revisit their life experiences?

Rather than offering solutions with “sighted in-mind” for blind people, we chose to work together through a series of co-design activities. How could interactive technology be designed, based on existing practices and preferences of blind people, to offer new experiences that encourage positive self-reflection and social connections with their loved ones?

  • “You guys are not asking me what I see in my dreams or how I perceive each colour differently. Honestly, no one has ever asked me these questions about how I look back on the meaningful moments in my life.”
    ↳

    Luis

  • “I’ve often thought that I am the worst person in the family because everybody else has pictures of everything and I don’t have many pictures of anything. Even if I had them, I wouldn’t know where to fnd them. So, if my sister dies tomorrow, I wouldn’t be able to put together a collage of pictures about her. I do sometimes regret that.”
    ↳

    Janet

Exploration

We visited the homes of nine blind people and interviewed them in person to understand their own practices of capturing, revisiting, and sharing their life experiences. Participants shared personal stories and memories associated with cherished objects, both physical and digital.

  • “The two action fgures on the table, they are very old. They are from 1996. I remember clearly when my mom bought them for me as a child. If you go to my bedroom, you will see that I have over 500 action figures. Pretty much every single one of them is engraved in my memory. This is why sometimes I go out of my way to track down an action fgure that I remember from my childhood. If I want these memories back, the only way is to track down those action figures that remind me of certain moments, with my brothers or sisters or parents.”
    ↳

    Ray

  • “Photo albums makes me sad because a lot of people have memories of just sitting and looking through photo albums. But that’s the thing that I can’t do. I’ve sat down with my mom before, flipping through the albums, but I always feel a little left out. I can’t enjoy all those pictures. I feel like I am missing out on all these pictures.”
    ↳

    Jessie

  • “You know, we don’t have photographs. We can’t see photographs. My brother died in 2012, and not long ago, my nephew put up some YouTube videos that actually have his voice. It was awesome. It really helped me remember him when I heard his voice.”
    ↳

    Janet

  • “I was born totally blind, so I’ve never seen things like a sunset or an orange color. If I would recall what they look like, I recall the best description that somebody gave me of it. I’ve been sailing, and I recall my friend describing the stars to me in a wondrous voice. I look through his eyes. Whenever it’s a visual concept, it’s always through the eyes of somebody else. I treasure those descriptions. I don’t really have to write them down. As we get talking about them, they just all come into my mind.”
    ↳

    Luis

  • “I did make a few voice recordings for my last guide dog snoring. I keep listening to it when I miss her. I would say that’s our alternative to pictures would be audio recordings.”
    ↳

    Meg

  • “When my wife and I go for a walk, a beautiful little bay where the sun setting over the backside of the Island is quite spectacular. I will never ever lament the lack of access to that. When we see the beautiful sunset, my wife starts to explain what she sees; colors, shapes and all that stuf. I thoroughly enjoy it while I’m there and while I’m experiencing with her. I’m happy to experience the world as it shows up today in the places where I am.”
    ↳

    Rob

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Ray’s action figures from 1996.

Translating Research Outcomes and Research Communication

Participants desired to know how other participants had responded to learn about other blind people’s reminiscence experiences, but COVID restrictions in 2021 limited a follow-up session for group debriefing. This strongly motivated us to make an alternative version of the research findings in an engaging format for our blind participants. (Listen to the full audio documentary HERE.)

This step initiated the exploration of “Alternative Research Outcomes (ARO)” that influence other research projects.

Co-Design Sessions

Group Interviews

Because most participants mentioned sound substitutes vision, and each of them kept at least one sound recording—such as voice memos, music, soundscape or intimate conversations—that was particularly meaningful to them, we decided to pursue sound-based reminiscence. Group interviews were hosted to share and learn about sound and auditory elements in memories and reminiscence.

Participatory Activities

Based on the suggestions participants offered during the interviews, the next step was designed to record their everyday or special experiences in sound. We shadowed participants as we recorded an event or an experience of their choice to create sonic highlights.

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Participants chose a range of activities, from walking with a granddaughter to learning medieval sword-fighting and horseback riding.

Co-design Workshop

Incorporating all of the collected sounds, field notes, and participants’ feedback from the participatory activities, we conducted the co-design workshop. We not only invited the participants but also their partners, family members, or friends with whom they wished to share memories. Participants were also asked to bring cherished audio recordings or sonically meaningful objects.

One couple brought a voice recording from a cruise they had taken 15 years earlier; another group brought a video of their self-defence training sessions; and the last couple, both of whom are blind, brought a handmade bell they had attached to their son when he was a baby.

Drawing on these special sounds and recordings, each group collaboratively created three “Sonic Mementos,” exploring new possibilities for how people with visual impairments can engage in reminiscence through sound.

Co-Speculation Workshop

Finally, we will host the final workshop that is forward-looking, speculating on future possibilities for sound-based reminiscence technologies for people with blindness.

Related Publications ↘
for the Workshop RtD in Situ: Discussing the Domains and Impact of Design Research @ ACM DIS 2020

Research Through Design with Differently Abled People: Participation, Ownership and Equitable Conclusions

Master’s Thesis 2020

Understanding everyday experiences of reminiscence for people living with blindness: Practices, tensions and probing new design possibilities

@ ACM CHI 2025

Translating HCI Research to Broader Audiences: Motivation, Inspiration, and Critical Factors on Alternative Research Outcomes

  • Min Yoo,
  • Sophia Ppali,
  • William Odom,
  • Yumeng Zhuang,
  • Kritika Kritika,
  • Wyatt Olson,
  • Catherine Wieczorek,
  • Heidi Biggs,
  • Arne Berger,
  • Audrey Desjardins,
  • Ron Wakkary,
  • Katherine Ringland

Acknowledgments

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    This research took place in Vancouver, Canada, on the unceded ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), q̓ic̓əy̓ (Katzie), kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem), Stó:lō Coast Salish, K’ómoks, Tla’amin, Qayqayt, Kwantlen, Semiahmoo and Tsawwassen Nations. These locations are rooted within Indigenous lands and nations.
  • ↬

    This research is supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI).
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    We also acknowledge Open Access support from the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG) and the Open Access Publishing Fund of Anhalt University of Applied Sciences.

Next Project

Check out Memory Compass →