"Aumens introduces a wooden compass with a single red arrow to help lead people with dementia safely to their homes. Activating automatically when picked up and turning off when placed down, the device has no power button to remember, no startup sequence, and no confirmation screen. Movement here becomes the interface, and this design choice removes one of the most common failure points in assistive devices: forgetting to turn them on."
"When pressed near the front door, the device stores that location as 'home' to avoid any accidental resets while walking. Once outside, the wooden compass for people with dementia has no options. This means it doesn't ask where the user wants to go. It only ever points home. The team says that there have been studies behind the project that show that changing modes or meanings caused confusion for the user, so the device only leads the user to their homes."
The device is a wooden compass with a single red arrow designed to lead people with dementia safely back to their homes. The device activates automatically when picked up and powers down when placed down, eliminating any power-button remembering, startup sequences, or confirmation screens. A recessed pin-pressable button near the front door stores the home location to prevent accidental resets while walking. The device offers no navigation options and only ever points home, based on research showing mode changes confuse users. Optional vibration and sound cues supplement the visual arrow as gentle reminders rather than alarms. The design centers on movement as the interface.
Read at designboom | architecture & design magazine
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]