“It’s not just for the Past but it’s for the Here and Now”: Gift-Giver Perspectives on the Memory Machine to Gift Digital Memories

Gibson, Rebecca; Babbage, Camilla May; Wagner, Hanne Gesine; Price, Dominic James; Martindale, Sarah; Chadborn, Neil H; Ito-Jaeger, Sachiyo; Darzentas, Dimitrios Paris; Webb, Helena; Jacobs, Rachel; Atabey, Ayça; Koleva, Boriana; Flintham, Martin; Winklhofer, Heidi; Urquhart, Lachlan D.; Perez Vallejos, Elvira

Abstract

We present the design of the Memory Machine (MeMa), a technology probe that can store, contextualise, and document media to represent memories. We accumulate vast physical and digital possessions throughout our lives, making it difficult to distinguish value in amassed images, albums, videos, mementos, and music. One option we wanted to explore via MeMa was to frame personal memories as a gift, in turn providing a way to revisit, share, and collate personal archives. We deployed MeMa into participants’ homes and tasked them to create a digital gift involving an autobiographical memory. Through qualitative methods we uncovered the experience of twelve gift-givers. We found that the framing as a gift brought meaning to a collection of media, promoting reflection and emotional reminiscence in participants. Our contributions include design implications involving the relationship between emotions, technology, and gifting.

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (Published)
• Conference Name: 2023 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference
• Start Date: Jul 10, 2023
• End Date: Jul 14, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Jul 10, 2023
• Publication Date: 2023-07
• Deposit Date: Aug 21, 2023
• Publisher: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
• Pages: 987-1001
• Book Title: DIS '23: Proceedings of the 2023 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference
• ISBN: 9781450398930
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3563657.3595962
• Keywords: memories, nostalgia, reminiscence, digital gifts, gifting
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/3144893