The Mirror Motive (MiMo)

 

Sketch of the Mirror Motive

The Mirror Motive (MiMo) provides a means for arranging events with other individuals in the community via an interface embedded into their homes. Many seniors spend most of their time within the confines of their homes. An artifact at home can expose them to activities taking place outside of their home within their communities, thus giving them an opportunity to be more involved. A MiMo user has a display installed into their home that allows them to add events, accept invitations to events, and be reminded of upcoming events. Based on the level of interaction from the user, the user receives feedback about how active they are through the perceived growth of a plant on the display. Be reducing the barriers between members of the community, the system allows greater opportunity for interaction, which promotes overall well-being. The system also includes pictures taken in the community room whenever there is an activity going on and broadcast it to all the MiMos. This may persuade seniors to consider attending social events currently happening in the community. Also, by allowing the seniors to ‘peek’ into activities in the community room, MiMo allows seniors who do not take part in such activities to get familiar (without being aware that they are) with those who do, thus feeling less intimidated to approach the common community room.

The system is embedded in a mirror-like artifact. The rationale of such an embedding is that individuals are often compelled to look at reflections of themselves, thus increasing the visibility of the information available in the system. For the purposes of providing reminders to the users, the use of additional artifacts (e.g., ambient visual feedback on the sides of the mirror, a clock in the main area of the home, a cell phone call, etc…) may be necessary to provide more immediate feedback. The intent of the system is to integrate into the home in as minimalist a manner as possible.

Current student researchers: Gregg Orlov, Richie Hazlewood and Rajasee Rege

Past student researchers: Scott Dial, Craig Michaud, Shruti Ramalnigam, Andrew Schwenker and Sindhia Thirumaran