Artifacts play an important role as triggers for personal memory. They

help in the recollection of past experience and in reminiscing about people,

places, and times gone by. Of particular interest to us is one type

of artifact, the heirloom, which may also have rich connections with

memory, but often through the lens of the life of a deceased member

of a family, or a friend. Issues of personal memory and heirlooms are

complex, diverse, and subtle. In this article we describe a design case

study investigating the role technology will play as part of the process of

inheritance. We describe the process of translating fieldwork related to

artifacts and heirlooms into a design space from which a broad set of

themes, concepts and prototypes emerged. We describe the development

of this space, its thematic arrangement, and finally a number of resultant

artifact designs.

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In  Human-Computer Interaction (Special Issue on Personal Memories)

Publisher  ACM

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