Music offers a multitude of benefits for people of every age, particularly for the elderly population. It works as a therapy to increase memory function, relax the body, reduce muscle tension and boost productivity. Our idea is to create a music app, especially for elders to help them listen to music and share their experience with the people. Along with the app, we have created a spinner to help elders to meet people.It helps them recover from loneliness. Sharing stories with others gives them courage to live life when they feel being accepted and respected.Recalling memories with music can thus help them recover their speech and also overcome dementia by recalling music and stories. Singing and recording music will allow self-expression by sharing that with their community. The other users of the app could be the listeners who like old songs. For elders listening to music can relieve them from boredom. While listening to music, tapping the foot or clapping with rhythm encourages movement. The other benefit that can be reaped is creating a large social network and recalling and sharing stories associated with the songs.Our idea to create app that help elders listen to music and create events to meet people to share stories related to the music and listen to others.
Most developed countries have accepted the chronological age of 65 years as a definition of 'elderly' or older person. The United Nations has agreed that 60+ years may be usually denoted as old age and this is the first attempt at an international definition of old age. For the study of old age in Africa, the World Health Organization set 50 as the beginning of old age. However, the definition of seniors is slightly different among developing countries and developed countries according to the Wikipedia (En.wikipedia.org, 2017).In additor,the majority of developed-world countries have agreed that senior citizens are those people with the chronological age of 65 years while citizens with age 60+ will be considered as seniors in most developed countries.At the same time, the WHO recognized that the developing world often defines the old age, not by years, but by new roles, loss of previous roles, or inability to make active contributions to society. (En.wikipedia.org, 2017)
Based on this situation, the application MusicLife will use Australian senior definition as our target audience group which is people with the age of 60+ and do not work full time.To narrow down the demographic,we decieded to add more specific attributes to the group such as hobby and intrest.To sum up,our target audience would be those retired people who is at the age of 60+ enjoy sharing personal and music experience with strangers.
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Meicai who is 69 years old now always shares her life story to her grandchild when she listens to some songs like Parade March of the PLA on the radio or TV. As she was born in 1940s which was the new period of China, all the popular songs are talking about founding China and how people fight for their life and their country. Meicai still remembers everyone surrounding her are always with smiles on their face and everyone is hard working, trying to help developing new China.She always told her grandchild to be thankful and cherish the life they have currently as a lot of people died during the hard developing time. Hence, she wants to use MusicLife to create a physical event in the exciting/happy category and share her music stories of Parade March of the PLA to other strangers, letting more people know how Chinese fight for life and freedom.
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A Scottish man shares his stories during the interview when talking about music.When he listens to some songs such as Flower of Scotland, he always reminds his time when he first came to Australia.He got devoiced with his wife 30 years ago after he came to Australia.At first, his wife said she would come to Australia later but due to some reasons, she didn't come at last and as time past, they decided to split up.He was alone at that time and he didn't know anybody.He worked hard and try to push himself forward but when he listened to some classical music, the scene of their first time meeting each other is still jump directly into his eyes.He still remembers what she wore and how she smiled at him.He wants to share his love story with his families but nobody would listen to him as his family doesn't like classical music at all.Hence, he wants to share his experience with other people who will respect his love in classical music.
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Paul lives with his wife in Goldcoast.All his kids are in NewZealand. Sometimes his wife feels lonely and misses kids. They like weather of GoldCoast and do not want to leave GoldCoast.To cherish his wife, he tells her jokes. He even plays funny songs on youtube like I'm sexy and I know it, Santa Claus has got Aids this year to make her laugh. His Son tells him about the MusicLife app. He saw the various events near him and plans to take his wife to these events where his wife gets an opportunity to meet others and laugh together. Paul and his wife have funny stories that they would like to share with others to make others laugh too.
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Mark is very fond of Hakka music. He used to dance on the beats during his student life at school and at his sports club. Whenever he watches others dancing on it, his own memories flashes and makes him emotional. He wants to use MusicLife App to share his memories with people to share his love for Hakka. He believes playing Hakka, encourages others to clap thigh or stamp movement and also generates respect for each other's culture.
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Zhihong is 80 years old, he is in love with Beijing Opera for a long time. He likes to listen to Beijing opera when he is young, but his family is poor and there is not much money for him to go to the theatre to listen to Peking opera. So every time he wanted to listen to Peking opera when only in the theatre entrance to heal Beijing Opera. In order to be able to enter the cinema to listen to a Beijing opera, he began to work to earn the theatre tickets. A lot of work cannot accept him because he was only 8 years old. So he began to recycle waste bottles, to earn tickets money. And finally, in his 10 years old, earn enough tickets for money, and saw his life first Beijing opera - Farewell My Concubine. So until now, when Zhihong heard Farewell My Concubine, he will be excited, he will think of his story that year, and his hard work in exchange for tickets that day.
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Susan is a 69-year-old woman; she does not particularly like the type of music. But she has a piano music has a kind and familiar feeling. Whenever she heard the piano music, her whole heart is full of memories of past life and endless memories of the mother. Because with her mother, is a piano lover, playing the piano every day. And Susan is a woman who grows up in the piano every day. So whenever she heard the sound of the piano, she remembered the day she was with her mother when she was young.
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Today is first of April, 8 years ago, Romeo received a call from Hospital. At first he thought it is just an april fool and do not take it seriously, but after a few calls later, he finally accepted the truth and rush to the hospital. However, God gets people, Romeo couldn't even have a chance to say goodbye to his wife. He was very regretted and cannot forgive himself, he hates why he do not trust the call so he can see his wife last time. After 8 years, he still can't step out of the shadow and live inside the endless remorse, 8 years past, he still imagines his wife will suddenly appear and say happy april fool. Today is also 1st April, he finds an app called MusicLife, Romeo wants to know more about this app so he downloads it. At the home page, he discovers there is lots of emotions that can express people currrent status, he clicks into the "yearning" and finds out he is not alone, there are lots of people who have same thing happened to them, and they shared a song named "Waiting for love". This song touches Romeo's heart and he decides it is the time to brace up and face his life as normal as before. He joins the event other people have created, therefore he can share his story with others.
Functions of the App:
- It includes various songs categorised according to the mood. Elders would be required to tap the mood they are in or they want to listen to music.
- It lists the popular songs under the mood with their ranking and number of likes.
- Elders can play music.It has functions to play, pause, stop, reverse and forward music.
- It will help elders to see the events under that song. Events are mood specific rather than particular song specific.Aim is to help eldely in same mood to get together to share stories for same mood and inspire each other.
- App will help elderly to create event too. They need to mention date,time, venue ,title and desccription about the event
- It will help elders add their pictures and music to be used at event.
- App can display the list of events joined by the user. 8.The list of events sorts the events according to the distance.Elders can not travel long distance.Keeping in mind the App displays the nearest event first.
Functions of the spinner Spinner will be used at events by elders to share their songs, like others songs, record their stories or songs and then listen to them.
- Music added to the app can be played with the spinner.
- It displays the name of each Partition, with their music updated automatically by the app.
- It helps in turn taking.
- It has like button to like others stories.
- It has a record button to record voice.
- It has the Play button to play the music.
- It has the button to play recording too.
What will Elders do?
- Play music
- Read others stories.
- Share their own stories.
- Look for events near them.
- Register to attend existing event.
- Create event of their interest.
- Upload music, images to share an event.
- Listen to music categorised according to mood.
- Meet others during events, helping them grow socially.
- Take turns to express their emotions.
- Record their Music or play music using Spinner during Event.
*** How are Function related to each other *** The aim of App and spinner is to help elderly share their memories when triggered while listening to music and meet people with the same interests for the music who are also eager to meet others and share stories with each other. The functions are related to each other in the app. One needs to listen to the music under their selected mood. The more tab under the songs will display the events related to that music. Join event tab is also under the song.If they do not find any event of their interest and wish to create their own, that function is available in that particular song. The following diagram shows how functions are related to each other:
What information needs to be available?
Data required to perform task:
Data required to run the app: The most important data is music. Various music of interests and particularly that had been famous at least 50 years ago. Selection of songs should be such to trigger memories or inspire elders to say something. Music has to be from most of the categories that had been in trend and famous during our their time. Most of the memories are from childhood, young age, when they got married, had kids or grand children.So songs have to be during that era from all those occassions.
How are data transformed by system?
Initial data is the Music that must be updated in the app time to time . The app needs to take the location of the elder to search for events near them. The app sends data like name, song to the Spinner. Spinner displays names of the person attending event together and help them in talking turns. Form of the solution MusicLife app will be an interactive app with icons, menus and clear text on Pages that can be swiped to navigate through app. Spinner has easy touch interactions to play music, record and play voice about stories and like the stories.
Level of user support - App and spinner both are simple and easy to use. Elders won't be required to learn something new. The buttons are similar to the existing apps and interactions.
Activity to be supported -Helping elders to come together share their emotion and stories with particular song.
Focused Groups: Elders above age 60: There have been numerous music apps available but that have not been designed in keeping in mind that elders do have health related issues that can make it difficult for them to use those apps. We try to find out what difficulties do they find and what features would they like to be implemented in Music app.
Elders living apart from Family: Our main focus is to let elders share their music and memories with their families and friends. Most of the elders are found living apart from families. We want to provide them a platform to share their Memories and stories with a particular song with their families and friends and stay connected. Elders feel loved when someone listens and appreciates them. Also recalling memories help them overcome Dementia.Music can trigger long forgotten memories and reduce anxiety. Music has been proven to promote better health and a higher level of functioning.
Elders who like music: We need to test music apps with the group of elders who are fond of music and can be the potential users. Elders who like music will possibly be using some source of music and can help us understand their needs and problems they have been facing in the current app or devices.
Elders who are currently using Music Apps: As we are required to design app , we must know what apps are being used by our elders and what do they like or hate about their current apps. This will help us know the layout, features and design properties they are comfortable with.
Our design journey started with designing various Paper Prototypes and then selecting one out of them that is close to our requirements.