Cell phone software aiding name recall

Abstract

Senior citizens often find it difficult to remember names. This paper describes a novel cell phone application that uses information about one's social network and the places one frequents to suggest the names of individuals one might plausibly encounter in a particular place. We anticipate that this "names prosthesis" will help senior citizens to improve socialization, functional memory and levels of autonomy. We motivate the need for this application space before describing our design process, first implementations, and early testing and iterative improvement of both the concept and the implementation.