Our society avoids the topic of death. There are countless loved ones passing away and we do not make full advantage of digital technology due to the restrained notion. Commemoration service for social media and a collective mourning system are in grave need.
We thought about what is the one place we leave a lot of traces consciously or unconsciously on daily basis. Digital presence is deeply stemmed in our life through our social media accounts. But there was a fatal problem that there was no way in reality that people can manage their own accounts after death according to their own will and autonomy in these platforms.
In order to reconcile social media and after death situation with the use of technological interaction. That is, to consider the digital volition, or the general volition of each stakeholder involved in the process, and as a whole it is both resulted as and embraced by a thanatosensitive design to bring the concept of mortality into our daily activity.
A commemorative space for social media
In-depth interview, observation, thematic analysis, value sensitive design, user testing
User research, UI Design, User Teseting, Qualitative Data Analysis
Soonho Kwon, Minseok Kim, Sunah Hwang, Dongwoo Kim, Younah Kang
What will happen after I die? We’d probably wonder what’ll happen to my family, friends, my dog or cat that’s left behind.. but hardly about our Instagram account or other social media, maybe because it’s deemed less important, or is something that’s valued less than physical connections. Our identity on social media after demise, is something that’s been explored for many years, and digital traces and presence is one example.
There has been recent studies on 'thanatosensitivity' that creates and uses technologies that allow us to comprehend, reflect, and discuss the mortality.
In an attempt to examine ways to successfully manage the digital traces as well as to provide an online commemoration opportunity, we aimed to sensitively design the commemoration system that considers every stakeholders’ volition, and that can be implemented into everyday life technology.
Digital presence is deeply stemmed in our life through our social media accounts. But there was a fatal problem that there was no way in reality that people can manage their own accounts after death according to their own will and autonomy in these platforms.
Privacy is easily violated, without the owner and unstructured security system and it is aggravated from not having a person to literally manage the account. In order to reconcile social media and after death situation with the use of technological interaction. That is, to consider the digital volition, or the general volition of EACH stakeholder involved in the process, and as a whole it is both resulted as and embraced by a thanatosensitive design to bring the concept of mortality into our daily activity.
With our in-depth interviews, we first approached the users’ thoughts on death, in online situation. Death, involves not only the phase where we’re no longer here, but also the stages right before. However, that is often overlooked and not carefully or intensely touched upon. It’s a subject that is difficult to address, to point at, and is often avoided to talk about. Likewise, it is something that involves so many stakeholders, that in one research it is unfathomable to understand everyone’s needs. However, it was necessary and promising enough to analyze three main stakeholders, who perform separate tasks in very distinct places.
Three Distinct interviews sessions conducted as exploratory research to identify research questions. Study targets three types of stakeholders: To-be-deceased, the bereaved, and legacy contact. Interview and observation participants selected via purposive sampling through requirement survey.
we conducted five hours of affinity diagraming. We extracted five themes and three insights as the key implications for our design solution.
Processing death begins from the moment the person receives the obituary. He or she goes through following emotional stages: a denial, fear, followed by sorrow, then regret.
Essence of purposes and practices of commemoration in fact was both to memorialize the deceased, but also for the sake of the bereaved.
It is born with the common purpose to honor the loved ones, and renew the connections with them, and reaffirm the relationship within the community.
Some said online platforms certainly lower that barrier and increase accessibility to commemorate and share experiences between the bereaved. Yet, some were doubtful about the sincerity of online commemoration.
Possibility and potential that social media can entail as an expression tool after someone’s death.
Two motives of commemoration: Remembrance and Recovery.
Sharing emotional recoverty: Community
We defined that an aperiodic space is a space separate from daily lives, yet not so faroff that the bereaved finds if difficult to return back to daily life. We suggest that this space could be provided within social media and the profile page of the dead.
Social media accounts are representation of oneʼs identity in digital space. When the owner passes away, it transforms into a space that shares the news, memorialize and is visited by the bereaved. Dissemination, preservation and community.
Setting up the Commemoration Account
Management Account for Account Manager
Encountering the Commemoration Acount
The prototype is largely divided into three distinct sections each focusing on :