Despite significant memory loss and cognitive decline in the mid to late stages of dementia, individuals living with dementia still experience emotions, such as fear, pain, interest, and joy. This project explored how to create moments of connectedness for people living with mid to late stages of dementia as a way to enhance their emotional well-being.

Three types of connectedness were identified: social (connect with others), personal (connect with oneself), and physical (connect with sensory stimuli). In the institutional care context, caregivers are busy taking care of each resident, and fellow residents are usually deep in their bubbles due to dementia. This project focused on designing an intervention that residents can use individually, enabling moments of personal and physical connectedness without needing assistance.

The interaction vision for the design was inspired by the idea of playing with a ladybug: proactive, lively, explorative, enchanting, subtle and open-ended. Through an iterative design process, the concept evolved into Twinkle—a semi-transparent sphere with a dynamic, interactive light. This light moves across the surface of the sphere to draw residents’ attention and invite interaction—the light's behaviour changes based on user interaction, encouraging exploration but not overwhelming.