Try our Story Creator App!

Download from the iTunes store:

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/tangible-memories-story-creator/id1006573343

The Tangible Memories app allows you to tell stories that are meaningful to you and your loved ones, and listen back to them in easy and accessible ways. It has been designed particularly with older people and their carers and families in mind, but can be used by anyone.

You can create pages that combine a photo, text and an audio recording. These can be viewed within the app or printed out. When printed, the audio recording is represented by a beautiful shell illustration. The scan function within the app recognizes the shell on each printed page and, as if by magic, plays back your audio.

As well as printing out PDF pages, the shells can be printed onto other things such as cushions or lap blankets. Music is well known to be therapeutic for dementia sufferers and can be a powerful way to access memories. We have also found that people with dementia often enjoy the feel of tactile fabrics. You can use the app to link a piece of music to a shell. When that shell is printed out (this could be onto a range of materials) you can use the scan function to play back that piece of music. This enables people to create blankets and objects to touch and feel that contain play lists that are meaningful to them.

– A simple design that allows you to make an audio recording, add a photo and a short quote
– A function that allows you to swipe through pages you have created as an e-book within the app and play back your audio on each page
– An export option, which allows you to email a PDF of each page to share with others or print out
– A ‘scan’ function that, using image recognition, allows you to play back audio recordings from your printed pages by framing the shell illustrations within the viewfinder
– Options to record audio within the app or use tracks from your iTunes library
– Options to take photos through the app or add them from your photo library
– As well as printing out PDF pages, the shells can be printed onto other things such as cushions or lap blankets.
– iTunes file sharing, enabling the user to copy their created book from the iPad to their computer as a backup option. Copied books can also be imported onto another iPad running the Tangible Memories app.
– Handy hints based on our research and experience of working with older people in care homes

The Tangible Memories research project has been working to co-design a set of new digital tools to address some of the key societal challenges concerning the care and wellbeing of older people and the legacy of the memories and stories that they leave for future generations.

Bringing together an interdisciplinary team including digital artists and makers, learning researchers, computer scientists, social historians, older people and their carers and families, we are exploring how tangible technologies might be developed to enhance democratic community building. The main goal of the Tangible Memories project is to help improve the quality of life for residents in care homes by building a sense of community and shared experience through a cooperative exploration of their life histories.