GVU Technical Report Number: GIT-GVU-01-18

Title: Capturing Memories: How parents record and archive items about their child's life

Authors: Alisa Bandlow, Jeannie Roberts Vaughan, Molly Stevens

Abstract:
As a parent, your child develops emotionally, mentally, and physically almost as you watch. Often, these memories fade as they are replaced in your memory with other events and more recent occurrences. Parents must constantly find ways to preserve these memories through the saving and archiving of artifacts. We embarked on this study in an attempt to gain an initial understanding of the art of archiving and recording memories by talking to people firsthand about their lives, their children, and their goals as parents. Our focus was multifaceted. We wanted to learn more about the how, what and why of saving things. Additionally, we were interested in the ways that items were saved and stored in the home, how parents accessed these, and whether they were able to successfully find these items. But most importantly, we were interested in the problems that parents encountered in their attempts to be record keeper, organizer, archivist, storyteller, while also fulfilling roles such as caregiver and breadwinner. Our findings indicate that there are several key points that need to be addressed in any digital system that seeks to assist parents in this domain. Particularly regarding physical artifacts, storytelling and organization.

Keywords: Ethnographic, user-centered, archive, images, photographs, parents

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