Caring Through Culture
Designing sensory storytelling tools for dementia care in Indonesia
MSc Thesis · Interaction Technology · University of Twente
01 — Project Overview
For my master's thesis, I explored how culturally familiar stories and sensory experiences could become part of storytelling experiences for older adults living with dementia and their caregivers in Indonesia.
The project looked at how culturally relevant stories and sensory cues could be brought together in a simple, low-tech tool for home-based care. The outcome was Teman Cerita, an exploratory sensory storytelling concept that combines photographs, sounds, conversation prompts, and tangible objects to encourage memory recall and shared storytelling.
My Role
Researcher & Designer
I worked independently across the full research and design process, from reviewing existing research and conducting a questionnaire to developing the prototype, gathering feedback from informal caregivers, refining the design, and evaluating it with professional caregivers.
Project Information | |
|---|---|
Duration | April – August 2025 |
Role | Researcher & Designer |
Institution | University of Twente |
Supervisors | Dr. ir. Dennis Reidsma · Dr. C.M. Epa Ranasinghe |
Methods | Literature Review · Questionnaire · Semi-structured Interviews · Thematic Analysis · Iterative Prototyping · Prototype Evaluation |
02 — Understanding Dementia Care in Indonesia
Dementia affects more than memory. As the condition progresses, changes in communication, behaviour, and cognitive abilities can make everyday interactions increasingly difficult, both for older adults and for the people caring for them.
In Indonesia, care is largely provided at home by family members, often without formal caregiving training. These experiences are shaped not only by practical needs, but also by family relationships, cultural traditions, religion, and the routines people share in everyday life.
At the same time, many existing approaches to dementia care and technology have been developed around clinical or institutional settings. This made me question how well these approaches reflected the realities of families caring for older adults at home in Indonesia.
Before thinking about what to design, I first needed to understand what care looked like within this context, what already mattered to families, and where design might have a role within it.
03 — Why Storytelling?
As I explored different approaches to dementia care, storytelling stood out because it could bring together memory, identity, and social connection in a familiar activity. Stories about childhood, family, important life events, music, food, places, and traditions can become ways of reconnecting with experiences that remain personally significant.
Storytelling also offered something that felt particularly relevant to the Indonesian context. Families already share memories through conversations, photographs, music, religious practices, and familiar objects. Instead of creating an entirely new activity, I became interested in how these existing practices could be brought together more intentionally.
This led me towards sensory storytelling: combining stories with visual, auditory, and tangible cues that might help make memories easier to access and conversations easier to begin.
The question then became not simply whether storytelling could be used in dementia care, but how it could be designed in a way that remained culturally familiar, accessible, and realistic for families to use at home.
04 — Research Question & Process
The previous exploration led to the main research question that guided the project:
How can a culturally sensitive, low-tech storytelling tool support memory recall in home-based dementia care for older adults in Indonesia?
To explore this question, I followed an iterative research and design process based on the Double Diamond, moving between understanding the caregiving context, translating findings into design, and returning to caregivers for feedback.
The project developed through five phases:
01 · Questionnaire — Discover
I began with a bilingual questionnaire involving 75 participants to understand how care is perceived in Indonesia, what kinds of stories and memories are commonly shared, and which cultural and sensory elements might be relevant to storytelling.
02 · Prototype Development — Define → Develop
The questionnaire findings were translated into design requirements and used to develop the first version of Teman Cerita.
03 · Informal Caregiver Feedback — Develop
I brought the first prototype to four informal caregivers through semi-structured interviews to understand how the concept related to their caregiving experiences and what could be improved.
04 · Prototype Refinement — Develop
Their feedback informed the next iteration, where I refined both the storytelling experience and the physical prototype.
05 · Formal Caregiver Evaluation — Deliver
Finally, I evaluated the refined concept with four professional caregivers to explore how it might fit within professional caregiving routines and more diverse cultural contexts.
05 — Phase 1: Understanding Caregiving
I began the research with a bilingual questionnaire involving 75 participants in Indonesia. At this stage, I was not yet asking people to evaluate a design. I wanted to understand how care was experienced within families, what kinds of stories older adults tended to share, and which cultural and sensory elements might be relevant to storytelling.
The responses showed that care was understood as more than helping with physical needs. Participants also described being present, listening, spending time together, and maintaining emotional and family connections. Personal stories often centred around childhood, school, migration, weddings, religious practices, music, and other experiences connected to different stages of life.
What became particularly interesting to me was how closely memory, culture, and sensory experiences were connected. Familiar photographs, sounds, music, food, places, religious practices, and everyday objects could all carry personal meaning. This suggested that storytelling did not have to rely on words alone.
These findings gave me a clearer picture of what the storytelling experience needed to consider and became the starting point for the first prototype.
Key findings
Care is more than physical support
Care was also associated with presence, companionship, listening, and maintaining relationships.
Memories are personal and culturally situated
Stories were often connected to family, childhood, important life events, religion, music, places, and traditions.
Stories can be supported through different senses
Visual, auditory, and tangible cues offered different ways of bringing familiar experiences into a conversation.
The experience needed to support interaction, not replace it
The tool needed to remain simple and familiar, supporting interaction between caregivers and older adults rather than becoming the focus of the experience.
06 — Phase 2: Designing the First Prototype
The questionnaire findings gave me a starting point for thinking about what the storytelling experience could look and feel like. At this stage, I began translating what I had learned about care, culture, memory, and sensory preferences into the first design concept.
I explored how familiar photographs, sounds, stories, and tangible objects could work together without making the interaction feel complicated. I also developed personas and visual references to think through different caregiving situations, cultural backgrounds, and the atmosphere the experience should create.
This exploration gradually developed into Teman Cerita. The first prototype combined a digital storytelling interface with a modified digital photo frame and a collection of sensory objects. Caregivers could create and personalise stories using photographs, sounds, and prompts, while tangible objects could be introduced alongside the story to provide additional sensory cues.
The aim was not to make the technology the main activity. Instead, it was designed to create a starting point for caregivers and older adults to look, listen, remember, and talk together.
Teman Cerita — Version 1
The first version brought together two parts of the experience:
Digital storytelling
A simple interface where caregivers could select themes, create stories, add photographs and sounds, and prepare personalised storytelling sessions.
Sensory interaction
A physical component containing familiar objects and materials that could be touched or explored while a story was being shared.
At this point, the concept was still exploratory. I needed to understand whether these ideas made sense outside my own design process and, more importantly, how caregivers would respond to them.
07 — Phase 3: Learning from Informal Caregivers
With the first prototype in place, I returned to the people closest to home-based care. I conducted semi-structured interviews with four informal caregivers, using the prototype as a starting point for conversation rather than asking them to evaluate a finished design. The aim was to understand how the concept related to their own experiences and what would make it more practical to use.
Their responses helped me see the prototype differently. Caregivers appreciated the use of familiar photographs, sounds, and objects, particularly when these could be connected to someone's personal history. They also saw storytelling as something that could involve other family members and create opportunities to spend time together.
At the same time, their feedback raised practical questions that I had not fully considered. A storytelling activity still requires time and effort from caregivers, and affordability and accessibility could influence whether families would actually use it. They also reminded me that dementia is experienced differently by each person, which meant the tool needed to remain flexible rather than assume one way of remembering or interacting.
One finding I found particularly useful was that more sensory elements did not necessarily mean a better experience. For some people, something as simple as a familiar photograph paired with a sound might already be enough to begin a conversation.
What I took forward
Make it personal
The experience needed to adapt to someone's own memories, background, interests, and family stories.
Keep it flexible
Caregivers needed the freedom to choose how much of the tool to use depending on the person and situation.
Consider the caregiver too
The experience should not create another demanding task within an already busy caregiving routine.
Sensory cues should have a reason to be there
Objects, sounds, and other sensory elements should be connected to the story rather than included simply to make the experience more multisensory.
These conversations gave me a much clearer idea of what needed to change before moving forward.
08 — Phase 4: Refining Teman Cerita
The feedback from informal caregivers helped me move from exploring what the tool could do towards thinking more carefully about how it might actually be used. I returned to both the digital and physical parts of Teman Cerita, refining the experience around flexibility, personalisation, and ease of use.
For the digital experience, I introduced more flexibility in how stories could be created and shared. Caregivers could choose different story lengths, add personal photographs or select from existing collections, use simpler prompts, and access guidance when they needed help creating or continuing a story.
I also explored remote family participation. The refined concept introduced a web-based flow where relatives living elsewhere could create and contribute stories, with a simple pairing-code interaction showing how these stories could be connected to the physical storytelling device. This explored how family members might participate even when they were not physically present, while keeping the older adult's interface simple.
The physical prototype also changed. Based on caregivers' concerns about portability, I explored a smaller tablet-based frame with detachable storage for sensory objects, alongside a laser-cut wooden version. This also revealed a trade-off between keeping the device compact and providing enough space for culturally or personally meaningful objects.
Together, these changes made the second version of Teman Cerita more adaptable to different people, situations, and caregiving routines.
From V1 to V2
More flexible storytelling
Different story lengths and simpler prompts allowed caregivers to adapt the experience to the person's condition and situation.
More support for caregivers
Guided prompts and accessible dementia information provided additional support without requiring separate training materials.
Remote family participation
The refined concept explored how relatives living apart could contribute stories remotely and connect them to the physical storytelling experience.
More intentional sensory cues
Photographs, sounds, and tangible objects could be selected around the person's own memories rather than including multiple sensory elements by default.
09 — Phase 5: Evaluating with Professional Caregivers
After refining Teman Cerita, I wanted to look at the concept from a different caregiving perspective. I conducted semi-structured interviews with four professional caregivers, all qualified nurses with experience caring for older adults across nursing homes, hospitals, and homecare settings.
Their experiences brought new considerations into the project. Unlike family caregivers, professional caregivers may support many older adults with different cultural backgrounds, religious practices, personalities, and levels of cognitive ability. This made personalisation even more important, but also more complex.
They also highlighted the realities of professional care. Time with each resident can be limited, and additional activities need to fit within existing routines. The way the tool is introduced also matters. For older adults who remain cognitively aware, an experience designed around memory should not feel childish or make assumptions about what they are capable of doing.
What I found particularly valuable was how this evaluation expanded the project beyond the family context I had started with. It made me think more carefully about who decides what is culturally familiar, how a design adapts when caregivers do not share the same background as the person receiving care, and how different levels of cognitive ability might change the experience.
What this evaluation added
One experience cannot fit everyone
Older adults differ in cognitive ability, personality, interests, cultural background, and the ways they respond to memory cues.
Cultural familiarity is personal
Culture could not be reduced to a fixed collection of Indonesian objects or traditions. What feels familiar depends on someone's own life and experiences.
Dignity matters
The experience needed to respect what an older adult could still do and avoid interactions that might feel infantilising.
Care happens within practical limits
Professional caregivers often work with limited time and many responsibilities, so any additional activity needs to remain realistic within existing care routines.
10 — Bringing It All Together
Across the five phases, the project gradually moved from understanding how care is experienced in Indonesian families to exploring what culturally sensitive storytelling might look like in practice.
One of the clearest things I learned was that care is not only about providing physical support. Participants spoke about being present, listening, sharing stories, and maintaining relationships. The memories they described were equally personal: childhood games, school days, migration, weddings, religious practices, songs, family experiences, and other moments from different stages of life.
This also changed how I understood culture within the project. Culture was not something that could simply be represented through traditional objects, music, or visual elements. What felt familiar depended on the individual: their family, religion, background, routines, and personal history. The professional caregivers made this particularly clear when they discussed working with older adults from different cultural and religious backgrounds.
The same was true for sensory storytelling. Photographs, sounds, music, and tangible objects could help bring memories into a conversation, but more sensory input was not necessarily better. What mattered was whether a cue was familiar and personally relevant to the person using it.
Ultimately, Teman Cerita became less about creating a new way of remembering and more about creating space for stories that were already there.
What I learned
Care is relational
Being present, listening, and spending time together can be just as important as practical caregiving tasks.
Culture is personal
Cultural sensitivity requires understanding someone's individual history rather than assuming that one representation of culture will feel familiar to everyone.
Memory can be approached through different senses
Photographs, sounds, music, objects, and stories can offer different starting points for remembering and conversation.
Personalisation matters more than complexity
A simple and familiar cue may sometimes be more useful than an experience with many features or sensory elements.
The caregiver is part of the experience
The tool cannot be designed only around the older adult. The caregiver's time, knowledge, relationship, and ability to facilitate the story also shape how the experience works.
11 — What I Would Explore Next
This project also left me with questions that the scope of my master's thesis could not fully answer.
One of the most important limitations was that Teman Cerita was evaluated with caregivers, but not directly with older adults living with dementia. A next step would be to involve older adults more directly in the research and explore how they experience the stories, prompts, and sensory elements themselves.
This would also require careful consideration of emotional safety. Memories are not always positive, and familiar photographs, sounds, objects, or stories may bring back difficult experiences. Future iterations would need to explore how caregivers can recognise and respond to these moments without making storytelling feel overly controlled.
I would also like to explore the concept with people from a wider range of cultural, ethnic, and religious backgrounds. The project made it increasingly clear to me that culturally sensitive design is not about finding one representation of "Indonesian culture", but about creating enough flexibility for people's own histories and identities to be represented.
Finally, there are practical questions that remain around affordability, accessibility, sustainability, and whether a similar approach could be meaningful in contexts beyond dementia care.
If I had the opportunity to continue this research, I would focus on five areas:
Design directly with older adults · Explore emotional safety · Include more diverse experiences · Improve accessibility and affordability · Explore applications beyond dementia care
12 — Reflection
This project taught me much more than how to design a storytelling tool.
I began with an interest in dementia, memory, and multisensory interaction, but the conversations I had throughout the project gradually shifted my attention towards something much simpler: the relationships between people.
Caregivers spoke about being present, listening, sharing stories, and finding ways to stay connected with someone whose memory was changing. Those conversations reminded me that care is not always about doing something for another person. Sometimes, it is simply about spending time together and making space for someone to be heard.
The project also changed how I think about culture in design. I initially explored culture through familiar objects, music, traditions, and other sensory cues. Over time, I realised that culture is much more personal than that. What feels familiar or meaningful to one person may mean very little to another, even when they come from the same country or cultural background.
Perhaps the biggest thing I took from this project was a different way of thinking about technology. I do not think technology always needs to introduce something new. Sometimes, it can simply support what people are already doing: sharing a photograph, listening to a familiar song, telling the same story again, or sitting together for a little longer.
Teman Cerita is still an exploratory concept, and there are many questions that remain unanswered. But the process of developing it has stayed with me. It strengthened my interest in research that begins by listening to people, understanding their context, and allowing what we learn to shape what comes next.
Read the full thesis
This page only shares part of the project. If you would like to explore the research, findings, and design process in more detail, you can read my full Master's thesis through the University of Twente repository.
