The large amount of digital data we leave behind can possibly exist for eternity, raising questions of curation, ownership and storage. With “Postgeist” the user is collecting a digital legacy to bequeath material and immaterial things to their family and close friends to create long-lasting memories. The heirs are encouraged to explore those pictures, thoughts and stories through objects, place and time. A digital legacy will be built and becomes a bridge to connect family generations over time.

“Postgeist” is Kristin Gräfe’s thesis concept, created in the MFA in Interaction Design Program at the School of Visual Arts in New York.

The big question I had coming to this topic was: “What happens to all our digital property when we die?”

On one hand this is, for the first time, a great opportunity for our heirs to truly see who you are, what you did and even what we were thinking. Together, all the digital data provides a reflection of a whole identity. But there are a lot of open question of how this is going to work. First, our heirs will have difficulties to know what data was important and meaningful to us. And even if they are aware, how will they access this data? They need to know where the data is and what the passwords are. And finally, how can they preserve our life stories over a long period of time?

How can we save a digital legacy? The first problem is just getting started. Nobody likes to think about death, even less so when it is the own death. So it is important to create an easy entry point. Second we need to maintain our digital stories on a regular basis and then curate this history to filter the important stories of life. Because only with lasting, curated stories we can create a meaningful legacy for our heirs.

With “Postgeist” I created a service that helps collect a digital legacy to pass on long-lasting memories to family and friends.

The collector builds a history of her own life. She doesn’t start with an “empty page”. Right from the beginning, Postgeist is filled with existing data. She can start curating the legacy from the first day on. By looking one year back a sense of distance is created so that the collector can reflect on her life events. A monthly reminder helps her to grow the legacy, so that it gets better over time.

Through all those meaningful stories she creates a place where memories can be experienced through images, conversations, objects and traces. The keys are physical objects that are important, meaningful mementos chosen by the collector. They can be connected to the whole legacy, parts of the legacy or very personal messages. When it’s time to pass on the legacy the heirs get a notification from the system. This can happen in a number of ways, for example a physical letter or an email that will be send to them. Then, they can access the stories through keys: Heirlooms left for them by the collector that will unlock rich digital data. The whole legacy is preserved in the cloud and can be accessed through a variety of devices. This way, the memories and stories of the collector can accompany the heirs throughout their life.

I see Postgeist as a bridge to connect generations of families over time with which ancestors can be alongside you throughout your life.

Postgeist allows you to travel back in time to relive great memories and the emotions they evoke. It is a place to reflect on your identity through time, people, places and objects.

“A man should plant a tree, build a house and conceive a son”¹

By “planting a tree” one can leave something behind that will outlive his/her identity. An indirect feeling of immortality, visible for everyone can be reached. The tree is a symbol for a social impact that is bigger than a human life. “Building a house” stands for the material heritage one can leave behind to indicate success and wealth acquired during a lifetime. Finally, “conceiving a son” the genetic legacy one can bequeath in order to achieve immortality. This is, biologically, the most important goal for humans based on the plan to survive as humans in general and as an identity in particular. It allows to pass on identity, believes and personality.

With the change in society to a broader ability to read and write the folk wisdom was expanded by the phrase: “writing a book”, a representation of the intellectual heritage that can be left behind. And it made me wonder: What will be the next extension to the folk wisdom?

Once more our world has shifted. We are surrounded by a digitalized world and almost everyone has become a publisher with a strong online identity. An identity that becomes similarly important to the real life person with the only difference of data and meta data that gives a more detailed description. The question is: What is the value of this identity and how can we leave a meaningful legacy behind, with an infinite amount of data that is still hard to filter and understand. How might our heirs relate to our digital trace?

Digital vs. Physical

Although we primarily act within a digital world the values of those digital artifacts are not the same as the values of physical objects. For example, I have a small wooden sheep that I owe since a couple of years and that I take wherever I go. It is just a wooden figurine with no data or information on or in it. Basically, it can do nothing but sitting on my night table. But it has personal meaning to me and it is somewhat important in my life. I got it as a present at an artisans market in a small town. I clearly remember the old proud craftsman who sold all the hand-carved figures for a Christmas pyramid. I got the sheep as a present and proudly took it home. Still, l enjoy looking at the carved furrows he made to shape a sheep out of a piece of wood. I like to just hold it in my hands to feel the warmth of the wood. Due to the emotional information and memories that I connect with this sheep it became a keepsake. I will take care to not lose or break it and it already has a place in every future apartment.

I also have a mobile phone, it is my fourth phone and the old ones are still working. The new phone has much more functions and it can take pictures. Although the phone has a much higher market value, is much more useful and carries a lot of personal information it is still not as important as a simple sheep to me. It is replaceable and if I lose it, I would only worry about all the inconvenience that comes with setting up a new phone. I will not miss the phone itself, because a new one will have more functions.

I am interested in how the value of physical objects can support digital data.

Denial of Death

When I read “Heidegger and a Hippo Walk through those Pearl Gates” written by Thomas Cathcard and Daniel Klein², I learned about Ernest Becker’s book “The Denial of Death”. Becker published the book in 1973 and ironically died 2 months before the book won the Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction³. I was very intrigued by the idea that all humans are just driven by the fear of death. It might be a point of view that is a little too simplified but I definitely see truth in it. In the end humans are craftsman that need to “create” their own history. It is about leaving something behind that will last longer that one life.

My Intention

Aim of my master thesis is the concept and the development of a service design experience in which the user can produce and deal with digital data in regards of passing on a legacy. My intended goal is to enrich the interaction we have with our digital data and the data of others to build an emotional experience. To communicate the experience I want to illustrate the interaction between the user and the service as well as the interaction between the heirs and the service.

Purpose Statement

We live in a world where digital data has become part of our lives and in fact has become part of our identities and memories. We cannot only have “the one” identity in the real world — defined by our family, friends and the surrounding environment. We also have a second identity or better many second identities in the digital world. The identities are not influenced by face to face interactions or by our history, they are influence by the constrictions that the digital world gives us. For example if a new site asks about personal data, either in form of a picture, some history or just a name; we will give up this information. From that moment on, we start to create a new identity: We could have a fictitious name and a new idea of how we would represent ourselves. I for example have 5 identities that represent myself in the online space. These identities can range from highly professional (with LinkedIn) to only personal (Flickr) and everything in between. My identity is influenced by the boundaries of the site and by the designed interaction that I have with other people on that site. By creating those digital identities we expand our analog identity to another space — the digital space.

But not only the identities are influence by the digital world, more and more of the memories are triggered by digital data. In order to remember what we did one year ago we can look at our digital photos, our Facebook status updates and blog post. This helps not only remembering what we did, it actually provides us with exact dates, time, places and people. It became easy to find out what we were doing and what we were thinking in the past. But although the meta data is available it is not very accessible, yet.

Whole experiences can be saved in digital files and in a non tangible way. This social change does not only affect our lifetime but also influences the death and the inheritance of personal belongings. The large amount of digital data we leave behind can possibly exist for eternity and raises the question of ownership, curation and storage.

Whereas the web has followed up quickly with death related services⁴, a meaningful way to pass on digital memories to friends, family or the next generation has been unaddressed. Recent research shows that in the real world people use rituals, artifacts and memorials to be remembered by loved ones⁵ and little has been done to understand, address and translate that issue to the digital world.

With the social change towards a digitized world in mind I want to explore the relationship between people and the material and immaterial things that can be inherited. I want to investigate how we wish to be remembered by future generations and what part of the digital representation of ourselves we deem as valuable to bequeath to others.

1. Forum Deutsche Sprache, www.wer-weiss-was.de, – http://www.wer-weiss-was.de/theme143/article1321335.html
2. Thomas Cathcard and Daniel Klein, “Heidegger and a Hippo Walk through those Pearl Gates: Using Philosophy (and Jokes!) to Explore Life, Death, the Afterlife, and Everything in Between”, Viking Adult, 2009, 14-19
3. Ernest Becker, Wikipedia, last modified on 3 April 2011, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Becker
4. Scott Lachut, “Digital Immortality and Death 2.0″, August 2009, psfk website, http://www.psfk.com/2009/08/digital-immortality-and-death-20.html
5. Will Odom, Richard Harper, Abigail Sellen, Dave Kirk, and Richard Banks, “Passing on and putting to rest: Understanding bereavement in the context of interactive technologies”, Microsoft Research, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., April 2010, 8-11, http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/people/asellen/972-odom.pdf

Young Families

With a newborn, young families start thinking about a legacy to pass on to their children. That group might not only collect and curate their own data but also the data that will be produced with a new family member. Many families already create a Facebook, Flickr or Email account for their babies to save digital memories from the first day on.

I talked Mrs. Holden, a mom of a girl (9 years old) and a boy (6 years old). She told me that when her daughter was born she started to write a letter to her daughter every year. The letter contains moments, stories and words that were important to her daughter that year. She plans to give the letters to her children on their 18th birthday. It will be a surprise, because the children don’t know about her “hidden box of letters”.

The Elderly

The group of the elderly that started to make preparation in the face of the end of their lives. This group might want to curate and sort their digital life and draw up a will. They will not as much create new data but try to bring data of their earlier life in order.

When I talked to Mrs. Ernst she told me that she started to put all her loose pictures into photo album. She said it makes her “sad and happy at the same time”. She lost her husband a couple of years ago and she said that it helps her remembering and being nostalgic. Mrs. Ernst is 72 years old and although she never owned a digital camera this habit can probably be projected to future generations. Instead of physical images from a shoebox, they will look through hard drives and computers to find old pictures, pick favorites and put them in some sort of collection.

Experiences connected with Death

The audience might be described as people who had an experience of death through losing a loved one. During the interview with James Leedam from UK based Natural Burial Grounds I learned that many people actually talk about their own mortality during funerals. This is the time when they would tell the partner what they would like to have regarding the funeral and when they start thinking about death (and life) and what they would like to leave behind.

Moving to another country with a different language made me think about communication. I realized that the pure exchange of information is not as satisfactory as communication that leads to conversation. It is not enough to be understood, it is important to be able to articulate your exact thoughts and feelings. But not only the interchange of information is providing communication, I learned that the cultural background should not be underestimated. It provides different experiences and knowledge which leads to different mental models.

This led me to the first thesis statement with the question of “How can the speech-language therapy be enhanced in order to overcome difficulties involved with a speech disorder?” I wrote the statement in May 2010 but realized during the summer that my initial idea of making information visual drifted to far away. What I did do though was starting to write a blog.

On June 18th I wrote a post about “Vicon Revue” a wearable camera that passively takes a picture every 30 seconds. I really loved the idea of capturing data of your life and was interested in the “idea of digitally saving memories of a lifetime”¹. (Looking back I am actually amazed that I wrote this, because it became my thesis topic.) I also wrote about my disappointment in how the Vicon Revue is displaying the data (a stop motion movie) and my interest in using a huge amount of data in a meaningful way.

Looking back I realize that I am not really interested in pure information visualization but storytelling. I want to know how data can relate to humans, how the data can even be more human. The second point that made me really think was the personal space. I feel like the media is driven by social networks and public spaces with almost no room for personal space and with all the digital data that we owe and that is very personal we only have little meaningful ways to save this data. So I wonder, where is our digital personal space?

I am interested in data that tells us stories and that shows a great balance between personal space and public space (like social networks).

Sketches I made while watching “Journalism in the Age of Data” – “A video report on data visualization as a storytelling medium”.²

Post-it brainstorm session on topics I am interested in, why I am interested in them and possible topics of further exploration:

1. Kristin Gräfe, “Thesis Bucket Blog”, June 2010 http://www.kristingraefe.de/thesis/?p=132
2. Geoff Mc Ghee, “Journalism in the Age of Data”, Knight Journalism Fellowship, produced during 2009-2010, http://datajournalism.stanford.edu/

Data Storage

Lifestudio: An external drive that backs up data locally as well as online. Photos, videos, music and files are getting stored online on a “3D wall” with the goal to make the data easily accessible and shareable. The storage comes with an flash drive that auto-syncs to the hard drive.

Dropio: Is comparable to a private blog: the service allows to upload and share files. By creating a so called drop every user can upload files to it and have a real time conversation with invited friends or colleagues about data in the drop. Each drop is private and can be protected with a password. Nice features are conference call numbers, instant messaging with users looking at the “drop” and mobile content upload. Maximum content expiration is one year after last view.

Dropbox: Syncs the files on your computer with an online secure server. This allows the user to save files on one place (online) and access the content from every other computer that has Dropbox installed. A public Dropbox folder allows other users to save, share and edit files. The first 2GB can be used for free, the user can upgrade the account with a monthly fee. Nice Feature: lets you go back in time (to undo changed files).

Student and Art Projects

Presence and Absence: This beautiful kit made by Colm Keller allows couples to increase their long distance relationship. All the objects are made of natural material and are handcrafted. The kit contains two USB drives that are made of wood and can be carved by a knife (also in the kit) and a USB hub.

Here and There: This project from Mimi Son (Hyunjeong Son) enables the user to store daily stories, like a digital diary, but also lets you secretly share the stories with only one other person. An object allows to switch between “Here” (the own story box) and “There” (browsing the partners diary).

Digital Remains: Michele Gauler assumes that the personal data gets stored on a network. A physical object with bluethooth connection let the heirs access the data after the user dies.

Carbon Copies: According to Nadine Javis 250 pencils can be made from an average body of ash. Each pencil has the name of the person on it and the heirs can sharpen the pencil back in the box. Over time the box fills with the new sharpening ash and transforms into an urn.

The Digital Life after Death

This research is based on an article that appeared in My Life Scoop on October 4, 2010 and on Digital Beyonds growing list of online services¹.

The first service group lets the user make a will for all the digital assets they own. Those are very useful and practical services, although I miss something like personal stories that have no material value but have priceless value through memories.

Entrustet: Is a free service that lets the user pass on digital assets to 10 designated heirs and one executer. The executer is in charge of informing the service in case of the decease of a user. Then the digital assets like domains, financial accounts, blogs, e-mails and social networks will be passed on.

Asset Lock: A service for mass storage of important information, like financials, estate planning, insurance policies account, passwords, emails and final wishes. This is a very customizable service, where the user can decide on the amount of executers, time delay between death and unlocking the account or the letters you want to send after death.

The second grub are single task services, which are handling only one thing and are very specific.

Webwill: A trusted person can change or transfer the users online social accounts. This service can be used for example for Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn, Tumblr or YouTube. The user chooses a desired setting for each account (e.g delete, save etc.) and two trusted verifiers who will confirm the death.

Legacy: This site offers online “Legacy Memorial Websites”, “Obituaries” and “Guest Books”. Users of this service are people that want support in case of bereavement.

The last group is also specific in the sense of providing high intangible value to their customers

if i di: One of many services that allow to send messages and emails to loved ones in the future. The user can schedule messages up to 50 years in advance or send messages after passing away.

1000Memories: Is a memorial website that collects photos, videos and stories of the deceased. The site invitees family and friends of the deceased to collect stories and memories.

The Voice Library: This service records, saves and shares verbally told stories. The service can be used by phone or online and the stories will be saved for future generations.

Findings

I found over 20 different services that handle the users data after death. What I was missing though is a service that celebrates being alive. Thinking about death is hard enough and I am interested in creating a service that allows the user to curate, add and save data while still being alive. I want to design the digital equivalent to the physical shoebox. The secret box in the back of the closet with the small mementos that are meaningful and important because of its unspoken memories, rituals and histories. The design service has the goal to provide a place were the user can save all these memories and stories so that the heirs can re-experience it. It should be a poetic, meaningful service to store data over a long period of time.

1. “Digital Death and Afterlife Online Services List”, The Digital Beyond Blog, constantly updated, accessed April 27, 2011, http://www.thedigitalbeyond.com/online-services-list/

Goals for my research are based on the intent to design a service that outlives the owner, that can be bequeathed and that carries on a reflection of the owners identity. With these goals in mind I divided the research in 3 target areas of investigation: 1. Relationship with Digital, 2. Digital Identity, 3. Bequeath Content. In my research I want to investigate how people relate to digital data and find out what data they value.

Relationship with Digital

In this area I want to investigate how and why a relationship to digital data and data that comes from others is build. Research proves that people are connected to physical mementos: they select a small number of objects that are linked to important memories. Many such mementos are considered to be worth of inheritance¹. I was wondering how this can be translated to the digital world and how important connecting memories to digital data are.

In this context it might be interesting to find out if people have nostalgia for digital environments like old websites or desktops and if rituals might be part of that relationship. How is something digital getting important to someone?

Digital Identity

With new technologies people are collecting more and more data that joined together are a digital representations of themselves. I would like to divide the personal data that lives in the digital world into 4 sub-topics.

The Public Space – this space contains the social networks in which the user is part of a bigger group. The data gets published and shared within a network but also has constrains, like layout of the site and suggested content. Examples are Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and published articles at online sites like GOOD…

The Personal Public Space – in this space the user is an author and publishes his/her own content without any constrains that, for example, can be found at social network sites. Examples are blogs, own websites, portfolios etc.

The Personal Own Space – this is the space that is not getting published and just lives on the own computer, mobile devices and/or a home network. Examples are folders with pictures, music and written word documents etc.

The Passive Space – this environment contains content that is not written by the user but by others. The user has no active influence on that topic.

In these areas I want to find out how digital data is handled? What part of our digital representation is deemed to be valuable, what needs to die? Are people aware of their digital identity?

Bequeath Content

Recent research shows that in the real world people use rituals, artifacts and memorials to be remembered by loved ones² and little has been done to understand, address and translate that issue to the digital world. The research will consider how the real worlds rituals apply to digital? What preparations are made by people to bequeath content? What is the processes around burial, memorial, the will? Are requirements needed to put the digital life in order?

The Research Findings

Survey

With the questions in the survey³ I tried to cover all 3 research topics: Relation with Digital, Digital Identity and Bequeath Content. I asked 11 questions however the following two question gave me some of the best insides: I wanted to find out if people differentiate between important data from the present (“You have only 10 minutes before your entire computer gets destroyed. What would be the most important data you save on a flash drive?”) and meaningful data for the future (“Which of your data would you like to give (or pass down) to your children/friends/family one day and why?”). I asked 68 people and despite the fact that the questions where open ended, 7 main topics came up repeatably:

Photos – 
For both question more than 90% answered that they would save photos (portraits of friends/family, from vacation) and in some cases videos. Some of the reasons mentioned were “personal memories”, “stories”, “share own life with the next generation”, “that might be enjoyable”, “to show how different live was”, “have the feeling that I will not be forgotten to easily”.

Work related Data – 
In this section people differentiated between the two questions. Almost everyone wanted to save work related data in case the computer would have been destroyed but only a few would inherit this data. Interestingly the few people who wanted to inherit work data had their own studio, were freelancing or students. Which indicates that data that is related to ownership is an important aspect for people. It probably indicates a reflection of identity that seems valuable to bequeath. People said they want to bequeath “self initiated work”, “scanned art (from the original)”, “university papers”, “all my work, but I would print it”, “scientific papers: they took so much time and effort somebody else could use it” and “my bachelor thesis”.

Music
 – Especially people with a extensive music collections mentioned to inherit that to children/friends/family, interestingly they did not mention the music itself (replaceable) but the collection they compile: “when my music collection is complete, I am looking forward to inherit it” and I “would like to make a mixtape for friends and family”. Again, this shows how personal identity reflected in the data makes the data more important. The personal “touch” that is given to the data makes it unique. People want to pass on this personal data.

Writings
 – Selected mails, digital diaries, poems and personal writing were considered to be worthwhile to be inherited by about 10% of the people. Actually I was surprised to see that only about 10% wanted to inherit writing. I think though this depends on the group I am asking. Nowadays a lot of people publish their written words to the internet, where it is save and public.

Personal Financial Records – 
Nobody wanted to inherit this but they wanted to save it in case the computer gets destroyed. Financial Records do seem more important for the own life not so important for the heirs. Again, I think financial records don’t tell a story people want to leave behind, it is safety.

Family Tree and Document with all Passwords
 – 3 % of the people had a family tree and/ or a password document that they said they would “save on a stick” as well as inherit to children and other family members.

One-on-One Interviews

I had some one-on-one interviews and was lucky enough to get insights from Paul Andrew Leonhard, Licensed Funeral Director and Vice President at Gravenor – Home for Funerals and James Leedam from UK based Natural Burial Grounds.

In those interviews I heard a lot about Facebook and I thought it is interesting how the role of a Facebook page changes after someone passed away. That page becomes a place for the friends to talk about their loved ones and it is interesting how people can talk much more openly about that person: they post pictures, share memories and tell stories. The page becomes a digital meeting space just like the funeral where people come for one reason (the person who passed away) and can feel free to talk about their grief without having the sense of not being at the appropriate place or time. One of the reasons might be that the Facebook pages are a group of people that all have one thing in common: they knew the person who passed away and each one has their own memories about that person. It might also help that this Facebook page is a digital representation of someone and it is in that sense real but not the “real world”. Even if somebody is gone, the digital representation remains and makes it easy to talk about that person or even to that person.

A second, for me important finding from the interviews was that only a few people prepare for death and that stands to reason. A good example is my sisters comment on that subject-matter. When I asked her why she thinks that topic is wired she responded: “Because people do not want to deal with something like that, since it makes them become scared”. Which is true and from what I heard from the interviews the only reason for people to really think about that issue is when a particularly good or a particularly bad thing happens. Those experiences can be the birth of your child, a funeral or a near death incident.

What that means for my intended designed experience is that I want to think in different directions: How can digital assets be saved, stored and curated in a way that is not awe-inspiring? So I want to look into designed experiences that are maybe not directly related to death, but rewarding in a short space of time. Maybe there is even a tangible way to encourage people to delve into their personal digital assets.

1. Daniela Petrellli, Steve Whittaker and Jens Brockmeier, “Auto Typography: What Can Physical Mementos Tell us about Digital Memories”, CHI, 2008, 3, http://dis.shef.ac.uk/stevewhittaker/chi08_mementos.pdf
2. William Odom, Richard Harper, Abigail Sellen, David Kirk and Richard Banks, “Passing On & Putting To Rest: Understanding Bereavement in the Context of Interactive Technologies”, Microsoft Research, in Proceedings of CHI 2010, April 2010, http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/people/asellen/972-odom.pdf
3. Kristin Gräfe, “Me & My Computer”, Survey October, 2010

The Meaning of Physical Objects Compared to Digital Objects

The relationship between digital and physical mementos made me think in a different direction when Elliott my thesis advisor asked: “Your little sheep: what if you kept photos of your sheep on facebook?” I always thought about the object as something that carries data or memories, but what happens if the object itself is digital but maintains the same meaning as a physical object. So I wonder if there are digital mementos and how do they become such thing? During my research I recognized how one participant mentioned that he would scan his artwork and his sketchbooks because he wants to have a digital collection of it. He mentioned that his artwork is “pretty important” to him, because he gave some of his artwork away as a gift and he said “the scans are all I have left of the work I have done”. This example shows how ownership and a story (to remember) attached to it might affect the importance of digital mementos. This brings me back to the two big questions I am facing in order to design meaningful legacy: The What and the Why?

It is important to know what one wants to inherit to the next generation but it is also important to be aware that this next generation probably wants to know why this was bequeath to them. There is a big connection between the story of things and the actual things, and by things I do not only mean digital data but also physical objects that are connected to the digital. Further research in that direction took me to already existing web services like Tales of Things, StickyBits and Itizen. Like local based social networks these services focus on giving a voice and a meaning to physical objects in our world with the intent to build a social network around them. I agree with Richard MacManus that there might be no value in forming a social network of strangers around an object.² Nevertheless, I believe that there is a rich value for ones family, close friends and surely the next generation to hear those stories to better understand beloved ones.

In order to answer the question how digital data is becoming meaningful I compared the properties and benefits of digital and physical objects. More information on that topic can be found in the book “The Digital Afterlife”³

Business Canvas

The business canvas helped being aware of the whole system. In the following exploration the “Business Model Canvas” from the book “Business Model Generation”⁴ is used:

Customer Segments – Goal is to create a service that outlives its owner in order to be inherited with a reflection of the owners identity. With this intention in mind I am looking at two groups of people: 1st the collector, the user who is actively building a legacy and 2nd the heirs, people who inherit the legacy. The second group can be the heirs but also start their own legacy which makes them collector as well.

Value Proposition – The value proposition is divided into three areas: control, data storage and accessibly. The value delivered is control over your digital legacy. It solves the problem of being in charge to delete and save the right data. The data then gets stored online and we provide accessibility to the user at all time. That solves the problem of old hard drives, CDs and flash drives that are not working anymore.

Channels – Customers will be reached through web sales, which is a direct channel between the service and the customer. The channels are Awareness, Evaluation, Purchase, Delivery, After Sales. Looking at the channels I realized that Awareness (How do I bring people to think about their death?) and After Sales (What is a good way to make people maintain their legacy?) might be the most difficult phases in my intended service.

Customer Relationship – Trust must be a very important goal that the service should reflect to the customer. Transparency is a way to make the service trustful. We also need to create a safe environment, because the user is giving us meaningful personal data. We imagine that the customer interacts with this service in a self-service manner with the help of automated assistance.

Revenue Stream – By looking at the market context we saw that most services offer both a monthly subscription and once in a lifetime fee for data storage. We could also provide different channels to materialize the users legacy. Examples would be a book, letters, apps etc.

Key Resources – The most important asset required is the online storage (we need servers) with a save security system in order provide privacy.

Key Activities – The web site acts as a key platform which needs to be continually developed and maintained. For that reason the key activities are platform management, service provisioning, and platform promotion. We also need to work in web standards to ensure easy, affordable access to the site at any time and device.

Key Partnership – We intend to partner with existing social networks, location based networks and companies that are dealing with data visualization.

Cost Structure – This business model is value-driven, it is important to focus on a personalized service.

Stakeholder Ecology

After gathering the data from research and the business model canvas I synthesized it into a ecology map. This map provides information about design opportunities and solutions for the stakeholders.

Content Strategy

In order to start with the ideation phase I synthesized the research in ideation principles. These principles will guide through brainstorming and help generate as many concepts and as rapidly as possible. I used Dan Saffers method of ideation and design principles which he discussed on the Johnny Holland Magazine⁵

Pain Points

I conducted 4 pain points in the service. First, the entry point. It is hard for people to think about death, even more so if it is the own death. The service has to be design with an easy point to enter. Second, the users need to maintain their digital stories on a regular basis. But it is important to not only maintain those memories. They need to be curated. The user should be able to grow a legacy with data that is personally important and is telling a story. Further generations should be able to understand the digital legacy. Last, the user needs to be able to create meaning, because only with lasting, curated stories a meaningful legacy for the heirs can be created.

Opportunities

Future Proven – A service design experience will be created which will enable the user to save, curate and inherit data. The service should reflect that the user will have a long-lasting experience with the service and that this experience can potentially live for at least the next 100 years.

Meaningful – This service should easily enable the user to define meaningful data. Future generations should not only understand an individual better but also connect with their ancestors. How can digital data become meaningful to somebody? First, by telling a story: If the data provides context through a narrative it is easier to understand and enables others to connect. In order to tell a story the data has to be edited. And second through memories: Assets are getting important to somebody if he/she can connect a special place, person or an event with it.

Media Independent – Since the customer is having digital data on different platforms, gadgets and software it is necessary to let the service live on a media independent platform. The customer needs to be able to store very different data through a various period of time at the service.

Physical Object – Very often the things that are meaningful for people and that get inherited for that reason are mementos. Objects that often don‘t have a financial value but are connected to memories. A potential approach for this service is to connect the digital data to a physical object that then can be inherited.

Design Principles

A set of “rules” that guides through the upcoming design decisions. I established them before having a concrete concept but I already know I want these principles to be important in my work. Those principles are high level strategies that should be reflected in most of the parts of service.

I will create a service experience that is designed with the intent to outlive the owner to be inherited to heirs. The service carries on a reflection of the owners identity and allows to learn, explore and share.

Moodboard

1. Gary Hustwitt, “Objectified”, 2009
2. Richard MacManus, “Op-Ed: Objects Aren’t Social”, last modified April 19, 2010, http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/objects_are_not_social.php
3. Evan Carroll and John Romano, “Your Digital Afterlife: When Facebook, Flickr and Twitter Are Your Estate, What’s Your Legacy? (Voices That Matter)”, New Riders Press, November 25, 2010, 16
4. Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, “Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers”, OSF, 1st edition, September 1, 2009, http://www.businessmodelgeneration.com/downloads.php
5. Dan Saffer, “Design for Interaction: Ideation and Design Principles, Johnny Holland Magazine, last modified on September 10, 2009, http://johnnyholland.org/2009/09/10/ideation-and-design-principles/

But the value proposition for the potential customer is not only having and saving content, it is also to controlling that content. I think this is very important to keep in mind: What people want is to make sure that after their death they are remembered in a way they are comfortable with, they want that the right information/assets are getting inherited. Interestingly this controlled legacy can already be seen in oral traditions that are being told in families: most of the times repeated and fairly specific.

After having the value proposition outlined I started to think about the key activities for the customers of my service. I am still not sure if this service enables the user to built a legacy by collecting data from daily life or if the main goal of this service is to sort already existing data/assets in a “legacy bucket”. Potentially it could even be both but in order to make a decision I started to prototype different scenarios. During the first prototype I wanted to get insights into the experience of reflecting on life as well as collecting on a regular basis. I asked people to write down one sentence and chose/take one picture every second day. Those memories could be a reflection of the last 2 days, a very good moment or just things that are in mind and important. I made boxes for half the people in which the sentence could be stored in order to research the relevance of physical objects.

The Prototype gave me interesting insides. 12 people participated with the task to write down one memory every day. 6 of the people had a box to put their thought into and the other half didn’t. 5 of 6 people with the box put in a thought almost every day. 3 of the 6 people without the box forgot to put memories in the box. It seems to be important to be reminded by an object. One of the participants said, she liked the way this box became her “personal box of memories”.

Post-it Brainstorm

During the first round of ideation I only took about 5 minutes for one idea and then moved on to the next one. Goals were to look at the problem in as many angles as I could. However, I still considered the pain point, opportunities and design principles that were established during the research phase. Later I reduced the ideations to the top 5 ideas.

Time Capsule

A object that opens its content only once a year. During this one time new content can be added (things that happened over the last year) and old content can be viewed (what was going on two years ago). A milestone/reward could be a yearly report that could be shared within the family or even a family gathering to look at the last years data.

Future Message

This message can be written now but send to the future. For example I could write a message to my sister right now, but send it in 16 years as for example a birthday present. This message could also be send to the children in 50 years.

Memorialize

This portable object comes with a camera, audio recording and a button, by pushing the button a picture gets taken and audio gets recorded – a moment is memorialized. The content will be saved on the object as well as on a private online site. Ideas like a memorialize button on websites, reminders to collect more content and an easy way to decide on what happens with social networks came up.

Social Gravestone

During lifetime important data could be send to an online database. After death this database will be implemented in a gravestone. If friends and family want to visit that data they can go to that gravestone and enter memories and saved information from a loved one.

Data, Nature

Data: How can the service tell a story with someones data? Here I want to have a closer look into the editing process and making data interactive. Nature: What makes me, me? What could I take from the bionic science to influence the service or the product?

Concepts

Based on the ideation phase I established 3 concepts to move forward with. Those concepts are further developed and have the goal to establish one favorite to work on further. Through the research I established two different directions to build a legacy – First, actively collecting (e.g. writing a diary) and passively collecting (sorting things that are already online, already collected). Based on that as well as considering the “Design Principles”, “Pain Points” and the “Identity Spaces” I developed 3 concepts. I presented these concepts to about 20 people and gathered feedback afterwards.

First concept “The Key Concept”

In this concept the center of the interaction is a key. This key is an object (the form is not defined yet) that enables the user to open his/her legacy and save information to that legacy. With the key a “dropbox”opens in which information can be dropped and saved. I used a key to make sure that the user is seriously considering what information he/she wants to add but also to make sure that this information is entirely private and only the key holder can enter it. To make sure that the user is not only saving information but is also providing context and meaning to future generations I added a time frame: Only once a year the user can enter his/her legacy but can then comment on saved data – this should give an opportunity to reflect on the past year to consider valuable information. A “email to others” button lets the user share a experience with others if wanted.

Second concept “The Family Urn”

Influenced by the idea around social objects and related reading I put the family in the center of that concept. I wanted to take into consideration that a persons legacy is not only personal content but also the social interactions between that person and someone else. In my view, the most interesting conservations/interactions are between people that are close (like family, partner, close friends) and can potentially give a very authentic view about someone’s identity. Based on that thinking I placed a digital urn as a social object in the middle of a family. This urn has a hard disc in it to save shared experiences and provides access to this content so that family members can add context to the things that they experienced together. The user can save all family names and user names as well as social networks and other online applications (like gmail), this data gets linked and matching data gets saved. For example: If a picture gets uploaded to flickr with the name tags of at least two family members, this picture gets saved in the urn. Another example could be mails between two family members. Later family members can add memories to the pictures, mails, conversations.

Third concept “Future Message

With this concept the user is able to send messages to the future. The message is addressed to someone and can be send not now but at a desired time. Personal stories can be send to close friends, the next generation or even to the “future me”.

Synthesis

During the presentation people resonated the most with the third concept – The Future Message. The reason might be that in this idea the human interaction has an emphases. However, it is also the idea with the most self initiative needed in order to be a successful concept. It highly depends on an insightful writing-stile. My prototype showed that the likelihood to stop writing on a regular basis is high (More than half of the people stopped writing a sentence every second day after about 10 days).

I like the family urn because it shows not only a reflection of an individual but the environment he/she lives in. I think there needs to be more work done in addressing the execution of this concept. It might be crucial to design an object that is more important and meaningful to a family and/or adding additional value by providing a framework in which stories and memories can grow.

The first concept raised concerns regarding the actual object (the key). I think I made it not clear enough that the object is not a flash drive or any other object we know now. I still like the idea: making digital legacy physical. A “key object” was a good start but I put more thinking in this area. Intention was it to combine the second concept (family urn) with the first concept.

Moving on with the “Key-Concept”

Main touch-points in the service design experience are a “key”, a website and the actual legacy that will be inherited (can be a book, letters, etc.).

The key is a physical object chosen by the customer. This object will be used as a password to open the website to his/her legacy, his object is unique to every customer. Once used to open the website, the key allows to travel back in time so that the user can see his/her data uploaded or taken a year ago.

The website is linked to social networks, nevertheless it is a personal private space to the customer. The content from social networks acts as a starting point to make it easier to add additional stories that bring pictures and data from social networks into context. The additional stories can be read one year in the future to grow new content. Therewith the site can visibly age by growing more and more information. With this site a digital legacy can be build.

After one dies the site and the complete legacy can be inherited. The customer can give the object to someone else. By using the object the legacy site will open.

From collecting and building a legacy I moved to the second part: the legacy as a heritage. Since this is what will get inherited and what will survive as a reflection of someones life, it should be long-lasting and very meaningful. The service should be able to compete with the physical world and should create long-lasting or meaningful objects and experiences.

To better understand the whole system I used my learned knowledge from the Dan Brown workshop and design a concept map. The first slide is the final concept and the slides two to four are screenshots of the development process.

Core of the concept is seen on the button of the model: “The user is collecting and organizing a legacy to leave for heirs”. This statement immediately makes clear that there are two kinds of users who interact with the system – the user and their heirs. The user collects and tags the legacy, to leave it for the heirs. The heirs explore that legacy, and potentially begin collecting a legacy of their own. The legacy itself is the bridge that connects those two sets of users over time.

The user maintains his/her digital property. The property is divided into spaces in order to make it easier to access for the heirs. The digital property is a big part of the users legacy but cannot be seen without the context in which the legacy is becoming meaningful for the heirs. As aid to generate value to the legacy the system will ask the user to contribute meaningful context to already existing content. In order to add this context the user logs into the system where he/she can see all the content that was produced a year ago – this can be from social networks, personal sites (blog) or files from the local computer. With this feature the user will be asked to reflect on one year old experiences and can then add stories, memories and thoughts. The system will ask the user to look into the content once a month. The memories added can be videos, photos and writing but also physical objects. The system will add meta data to all existing content.

Creating a legacy is about creating a shared space that reveals ones identity. The content in this space acts as seeds to remind not only the user of shared experiences but also the heirs. In this digital space the user can than add his version of the experience. Those experiences are closely related to time, place, object and people which will become the meta data connecting all experiences.

The heirs cannot only see the whole digital legacy but are rather encouraged to explore the content through the meta data. Time, place, object and people will be the seed for varying viewpoints on the content.
 With time the heirs can see all the content related to age, so for example the 27 year old heir would see all the content from his/her grandmother when she was 27 in order to directly compare lives. The same comparison is happening with place: if the heir is going to a relevant place, lets say grandmother’s birthplace, content connected to that meta data will be shown. The heirs cannot only explore the physical space of their ancestors but also see the digital data related. 
Physical objects will be tagged with digital data by the user (or already tagged) and when the heir is taking a picture of the object or if he/she is holding it in front of the computer this information can be seen. This allows to bring mementos that are part of an experience or a “seed” for an experience into the legacy. 
People who shared an experience will be tagged in the system to allow to understand someone better through his/her network.

All the data will be saved online and the output of the legacy can have different forms. It can be physical letters, objects, an app or an email. Since this service is supposed to last for decades it will be up to the heirs how they intent to view their ancestors legacy. The service will provide the view through meta information and data will be stored as accessible as possible; readable on as many devices as possible.

The first draft on the storyboard is based on the customer stages. The interactions and the experience with the service are illustrated on one example customer (Mary). Since I have two kinds of customers in the service, the stages repeat with the second customer. The heirs go through the same stages but have different experiences with the service than the collectors has.

After writing the script I explored the characters that will be used in the movie. In order to communicate the long-lasting valuable character of the service I decided to use an illustration style in the movie. The characters have a personality that the viewer can resonate with. The illustrations help to let the viewer imagine themselves in the role of interacting with the service. First sketches for the illustrations:

Because I decided to use illustration as the main animation style, the storyboard had to be refined. The story of the movie remains the same, only the visual were edited:

Finally, I colored the illustrations in Photoshop and set the stage for working in After Effects:

1. Donald A. Norman, “Living with Complexity”, The MIT Press, October 31, 2010, Chapter 6: Systems and Services, 146-180

To develop the branding I first looked at adjectives and nouns to describe the service. I brainstormed ideas around the following six words: grow, connected, secret, memory, messages and save. Since the service reflects not only the zeitgeist of a generation but also a personal identity and history I named it “Postgeist”.

After the sketches I refined the hand drawn logos digitally to develop the final logo.

I used a physical key to reflect the service goal: creating a personal and secret space for reminiscences. It was important to show, that this is not about sharing data on social networks or with strangers.

Information Architecture

After developing the branding strategy I started to design the information architecture of the site. The online site will be the main touchpoint for the user. I designed the site with the following constrains in mind: the screens should be legible and organized on all kinds and sizes of displays. The structure of the site can easily be modified to fit on tablets or mobile devices.

The sitemap gives an overview for a user flow with the goal to add reflections to the content, share the content with individuals, edit and explore.

Wireframes are the extensions of the sitemap and are used to connect to the visual design.

Final Design

The introduction page gives a short 3 steps description of how to use the service and invites to sign up. The screenshots give an idea of the look and feel of the site.

Content on every homepage will look different. However everyone looks at the data collection from one year ago.