Reminiscence 1

RESEARCH PROPOSAL ON AN APP THAT ENHANCES REMINISCENCE THROUGH

PHOTOS

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Course

Professor Name

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Date
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Research Proposal on an Application that enhances Reminiscence through Photos

1.1. Overview

Previously reminiscence was defined as an organically occurring process where people

recalled past experiences or events either alone or with others (de Boer, 2019). Studies on

using different forms of sensory media reveal that cues are mainly involved in reminiscence

(Kim et al., 2022). In memory studies, cues are the means of retrieving data from old

memories, including smells, voices, texts, and photos. Several studies indicate that

reminiscence technology can aid a person in recognising key life events and interpreting past

experiences more positively. Also, this technology can help a person to relive and relish these

experiences. It is crucial to document how individuals engage with their past experiences in

their current lives. Recent reports state that individuals use digital and physical mementos to

recall their past (Kim et al., 2022). A physical memento is a tangible object that evokes

specific memories. In contrast, a digital memento is electronically archived data (a photo,

music-listening history, and video) or the metadata generated in particular periods. For

instance, one case showed location-based past pictures to users via their phones when they

were near a specific place to aid them in recalling past places and times (David, 2019).

Physical gadgets, music, and photos have been used extensively to prompt reminiscence

(Webber et al., 2021). For senior citizens living in RACFs, reminiscence enhances

connections with the past and social interaction, improving their quality of life.

Photography has been extensively used as a vital tool for capturing life memories and

events. The commonality of the smartphone camera has substantially modified what people

take pictures of. Instead of recording and documenting important events, smartphones have

permitted people to record mundane and daily aspects of their lives. This results in numerous
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images being taken. A crucial role, however, remains to document and later reminisce on

experiences and events. Family picture collections taken using phones play a key role in

reminiscence, which consequently enhance of a sense of belonging and reduces social

isolation (Axtell and Munteanu, 2019). Reminiscing has been discovered to boost people's

cognitive health, and it is an activity people wish they frequently did. This is because it draws

primarily on a person's longer-term memory (McCauley et al., 2019). People take photos for

several reasons, including recording and reminding people of shared and individual

experiences.

Social media is also involved in reminiscence. This is because social media posts are an

excellent source of a person's life summary, aggregating activities, interactions, thoughts, and

events of the last several months or years (Naini et al., 2019). These posts can be utilised for

individual reminiscence and keeping track of the developments happening in the lives of a

person's close friends (Naini et al., 2019). For instance, Facebook usually has an "On this

day" feature that resurfaces a person's posts from the same day in previous years (McGookin,

2019). Such posts may include photos that may allow a person to recall things that happened

years ago. This shows that photos and social media play a key role in reminiscence.

1.2. Current Situation

Several technologies have been created to improve reminiscence. One of these

technologies is MyEvents. MyEvents has been created to support the active involvement of

individual users in reminiscence by searching and picking from movement, and personal

location data gained using mobile technologies over extended periods to create event

mementos (Parvinzamir et al., 2019). An event memento provides crucial contextual data for

an object memento, like a souvenir purchased during a vacation. Personal optical analytics is
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created for interactive self-knowledge discovery and exploring selected events and their data

from lengthy information. As a technology created to improve reminiscence, Myevents offers

a holistic environment of visualisation, computer-human interaction, and data analytics,

featuring new approaches to boost selection subjectivity from weekly and daily events and

novel optical presentations for an event memento to evoke event familiarity. In short, the key

technical aspects of MyEvents are:

 Interactive visualisations to support heuristic searches and discovery, which

include the following. A search bar that permits the user to seek events with

multi-keywords, including the category, preferences, and name via heuristic and

multiple keyword entry and map-based and timeline visualisations to permit a

user to gain an overview of personal events at the selected period.

 A novel optical illustration of events mementos. This optically encodes

heterogeneous data about the event, including photos, time, contextual data, and

time. Affiliations with other events (for instance, events on the same day) are

usually highlighted to boost memory reflection further.

A platform like Flickr can provide a user with a decent method of preserving memories

through pictures which can be utilised for reminiscing purposes. Flickr is one of the most

popular picture-sharing platforms (Domenech et al., 2020). Users can upload up to twenty-

five million pictures on a very high-traffic day. Recent statistics indicate that around 5.9

billion pictures have been uploaded on the picture-sharing platform (Ding and Fang, 2020).

Researchers and developers can extract the Flickr data via the Flickr API after registering on

the site. The information retrieved from the API is usually in XML or JSON format

(Domenech et al., 2020). The obtained information can be split into two segments, metadata,
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and Flickr images. Metadata contain various types of information about these pictures, such

as picture title, tags, ID, coordinates, description, and the picture owner's information. A user

optionally gives textual data (description, tags, and title). At the same time, location data can

be generated via manual geotagging by a photographer and built-in GPS device receivers.

The subjects of Flickr pictures can be categorised into two broad types, landscape, and

portrait. The metadata and pictures can enable a user to recall certain events. This implies

that Flickr can be used for reminiscing purposes as a user can save her recent photos on the

platform and view them later.

1.3. Problem Domain

The technologies and platforms used in reminiscing have several problems. One problem

is that they are continuously updated, and the terms of these platforms constantly change.

Despite this, many users of these platforms can adapt to changes and new applications as the

networking and connection elements are very similar, likes, followers, direct messages, and

friends. However, pictures and content are usually not transferable, so deserting a platform,

the firm's content decisions, or shuttering the platform can result in a loss of archives and

history (Anderson, 2020). In most cases, users are often warned of the changes a few months

before the decision is taken, giving them adequate time to archive or move their content and

pictures. An excellent example of users being warned of key changes to a platform is the case

of Flickr. The picture-sharing platform warned users in November 2017 that free storage

quotients would be reduced and a user could only store up to 1000 pictures, and anything

beyond that would be deleted unless he pays for a pro account (Anderson, 2020). Millions of

pictures were lost, implying that its suitability as a reminiscing platform was questioned by

billions of its users who did not manage to buy a pro account.
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MyEvents has several problems. Firstly, it takes time to load once it is launched.

Secondly, it consumes a significant amount of a device's storage. Lastly, it constantly

sends reminders to users to back up events and photos, which infuriates them.

1.4. Significance of the Study

This study shall contribute to the existing literature on reminiscing platforms. This study

will be an eye-opener in creating an application that aids people in taking, sorting, and

utilising pictures specifically for reminiscing purposes. The application shall tackle the

challenges seen in existing applications and platforms. To address these challenges,

executing an intense assessment of users' expectations and needs would be important. It is

also important to comprehend the current problems so that developers know the techniques

they can use to address them. The main objective of this project is to create an application

that allows users to take photos, organise them and easily retrieve them whenever they

want to engage in reminiscence.

2.0. Objectives.

This project intends to show the effectiveness of an application in encouraging a user to

reminiscence. To achieve the main goal, the following objectives shall guide the study.

2.1. Reviewing journal articles and relevant literature to comprehend the study topic better.

Conducting a systematic literature review was essential to have a clear image of what

previous scholars have discovered and said concerning the topics of applications and

reminiscence and the correlation between the two topics. The systematic review served four key

purposes. Firstly, it offered a body of empirical knowledge to developers that would aid in
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investigating how mobile applications could be used to encourage people to reminiscence.

Secondly, the review aided in recognition of gaps and inconsistencies exposed by previous

scholars. Thirdly, it was crucial to conduct the systematic review because it would aid in

identifying research areas that should be covered in subsequent studies. Lastly, the review would

aid in recognizing previous journals to steer clear of repetition and acknowledge the work of

other scholars.

The following activities were undertaken to achieve this objective:

 Looking for and perusing through relevant journal articles and website posts

concerning this research topic.

 Organising the selected journal articles by looking at trends and selecting the ones

that align with the study topic.

 Remaining critical and consistent while jotting down notes from different study

resources.

 Evaluating how pictures could be utilised in recalling resilience.

 Evaluating conventional methods of recalling resilience and their weaknesses.

 Evaluating the benefits that an application could have in recalling reminiscence.

 Writing down the systematic review.

List of deliverables for this objective.

 An excel sheet indicating the articles used in writing the systematic literature review.

 A literature review chapter in the research paper.


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2.2. Recognition of users' expectations, requirements, and needs in modern and traditional

reminiscence techniques.

Requirements refinement and gathering is another crucial objective for this research. It is

important to comprehend what a user expects to be in the final product and what his wishes are

as far as evoking reminiscence is concerned. Recognising users' expectations and needs is crucial

because it influences the design strategy. It will aid the developers in creating an optimal

application for the user that meets and exceeds his expectations.

The following activities were undertaken to fulfil this objective:

 Recognising the user study objectives. Here it is important to describe what requires to be

known, what is unknown, and the threshold to evaluate if the user study process has been

fruitful.

 Creating the correct study questions for the users.

 Selecting the user study method that will be used in the research.

 Selecting participants.

 Assembling all the research toolkits

 Analysing and synthesising the outcomes.

List of deliverables for this objective

 A list of the participants who were involved in the study.

 Information gathered and the information analysed.

 Final report chapter covering the requirements.

2.3. Executing a user survey to discover the challenges users are currently experiencing
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The research will be a success if all the requirements, expectations, and needs of various

users are met. Also important is discovering how various users use technology to evoke

reminiscence. For this research to be considered valuable, it would be crucial to evaluate the

various challenges users are experiencing with contemporary techniques of storing memories

that aid in reminiscing. Then it would be important to create an app that deals with these

problems. Thus, the research will execute a detailed survey to determine the various problems

users experience when using contemporary techniques.

List of activities taken to achieve this objective:

 Drafting of survey questionnaires.

 Conducting surveys with people of various age groups.

 Survey users' feedback and reviews about various contemporary reminiscing strategies.

 Analysing and synthesising all the obtained information.

 Getting users' problems and comparing them with their expectations.

List of deliverables for this objective.

 A questionnaire that will be attached in the appendix.

 Recognition of missing user requirements.

 Data gathered and data evaluated.

 Improving the ultimate report chapter covering requirements.

2.4. Recording Events and improving reminiscing

Recent studies indicate that people should capture moments and events in clear pictures

and organise them properly. A user should be given a chance to create content in the form of
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pictures, organise the content and easily obtain it for reminiscing purposes. The completion of

this research shall result in a linked and organised collection of moments captured via

photography that shall be utilised in the future for reminiscing activities.

Here are activities undertaken to achieve this objective

 Determining how the current system organises and links information and resources for

reminiscing purposes.

 Deciding the best ways of capturing and organising data through pictures.

 Designing ways that remind a user to reminiscence using the application.

List of deliverables for this objective

 Design report/documents.

 Types of data being recorded and the means to record the data.

2.5. Creating an application that aligns with users' wishes and one that tackles the limitations

and challenges witnessed in other reminiscing techniques

The ultimate objective of this study is to create an application that aids users capture

pictures, arrange them and utilise them mainly for reminiscing purposes. The application will be

utilised to tackle problems in current technologies and reminiscing strategies. This research aims

to create an application that revolves around two key concepts: Firstly, the application should

warn users to save their photos when updating itself. Secondly, it should not constantly remind a

user to back up his photos. The achievement of this objective will result in a fully-fledged
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working application that addresses any issues the users have experienced with previous

reminiscing platforms and applications.

Here are the activities undertaken to achieve this objective

 Deciding on the programming language, technologies, and tools.

 Designing the UX/UI of the prototype.

 Step-wise feature implementation.

 Testing and assessment.

 Launching of the application.

List of deliverables for the objective

 Application.

 Executed modules

 A section in the final report that discusses the implementation of the application.

3.0. Legal, social, and Ethical Problems

The final document will thoroughly discuss ethical, social, and legal problems. Nevertheless,

some issues are critical to note. They are indicated as follows;

3.1 The app will primarily take records of personal instants of occasions and families.

Information security will be seriously taken to safeguard the information and data from security

risks like breaches and data leakages. To preserve outstanding data security, it would be essential

to apply security protocols.

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3.2 Prior to surveying the intended audience, they will sign the consent forms. The partakers will

be permitted to pull out from the survey if they wish voluntarily.

3.3 The study will encompass the usage of questionnaires whereby the Faculty Research Ethics

Committee (FREC) will be invited to approve the questionnaires. In addition, the questionnaires

will be tested to ensure that they are appropriate and effective before the end is distributed to the

partakers.

4. Resources
It is also crucial to pinpoint the varied resources which would be vital in realizing this

project. A quick summary of a few of the materials that would be essential to complete this

endeavor is provided underneath.

 Hardware Resources- Hardware resources like personal computers and smartphones are

vital to completing a project. The planning and usage of these resources must not

establish a challenge in any manner.

 Software Resources- Development software applications like Adobe XD, Figma, and

Microsoft Axure, among others, are also crucial to the success of this project. The

preparation and use of these materials ought not to pose any encounter.

 Human resources- Perhaps the most important aspect of every project is human

resources.

For this project, unpaid personnel resources will be required, like those tasked with

distributing questionnaires. In the absence of volunteers, there may be a problem, and the

world wide web public domain will need to be utilized.

5.0. The Critical Success Factor

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It's crucial to realize that other mobile applications with a shared objective of gathering

and storing memory exist. As a result, there are no major risks associated with this project.

However, as was already indicated, there is a small possibility that there won't be any individuals

to participate in the survey, where the public internet domain will be required to be utilized.

6.0. Schedule

7.0. References

Anderson, K.E., 2020. Getting acquainted with social networks and apps: capturing and

archiving social media content. Library hi tech news.

https://scholarship.libraries.rutgers.edu/view/delivery/01RUT_INST/

12655249840004646/13655249830004646

Axtell, B., & Munteanu, C. (2019, May). PhotoFlow in action: picture-mediated reminiscence

supporting family socio-connectivity. In Extended Abstracts of the 2019 CHI Conference

on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-4).

http://library.usc.edu.ph/ACM/CHI2019/2exabs/INT050.pdf

Ding, X., & Fan, H. (2019). Exploring the distribution patterns of Flickr photos. ISPRS

International Journal of Geo-Information, 8(9), 418. https://www.mdpi.com/2220-

9964/8/9/418/pdf

de Boer PhDa, A.H., “On Facebook I met old friends again”: The use of ICTs in the process of

reminiscence among older adults.

https://journal.gerontechnology.org/archives/21be55a867734a43b38c2bd6050ca3a7.pdf
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Domènech, A., Mohino, I. and Moya-Gómez, B., 2020. Using flickr geotagged photos to

estimate visitor trajectories in world heritage cities. ISPRS International Journal of Geo-

Information, 9(11), p.646. https://www.mdpi.com/2220-9964/9/11/646/pdf

Kim, S., Jang, S., Moon, J.Y., Han, M. and Park, Y.W., 2022, June. Slide2Remember: an

Interactive Wall Frame Enriching Reminiscence Experiences by Providing Re-encounters

of Taken Photos and Heard Music in a Similar Period. In Designing Interactive Systems

Conference (pp. 288-300).

https://scholar.archive.org/work/46yhsqpmynbaxkebzslnxfw7du/access/wayback/https://

dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3532106.3533456

McGookin, D., 2019, May. Reveal: Investigating proactive location-based reminiscing with

personal digital photo repositories. In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on

Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-14).

http://library.usc.edu.ph/ACM/CHI2019/1proc/paper435.pdf

Naini, K.D., Kawase, R., Kanhabua, N., Niederée, C. and Altingovde, I.S., 2019. Those were the

days: learning to rank social media posts for reminiscence. Information Retrieval

Journal, 22(1), pp.159-187. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10791-018-9339-9

Parvinzamir, F., Zhao, Y., Deng, Z. and Dong, F., 2019, February. Myevents: a personal visual

analytics approach for mining key events and knowledge discovery in support of personal

reminiscence. In Computer Graphics Forum (Vol. 38, No. 1, pp. 647-662).

https://uobrep.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10547/623055/MyEvents___Comput

er_Graphics_Forum.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y

Webber, S., Baker, S. and Waycott, J., 2021. Virtual visits: Reminiscence in residential aged care

with digital mapping technologies. Australasian Journal on Ageing, 40(3), pp.293-300.

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https://minerva-access.unimelb.edu.au/bitstream/handle/11343/298201/ajag.12902.pdf?

sequence=1&isAllowed=y