Recommendations for the Design of Digital Memorials in Social Web

Abstract

Nowadays, the cultural practices in our society are affected by fast technological innovation. Among those practices, there is mourning and the way we face death. In this context, our mortuary rites are being transferred to the digital world as well. Applications for online or digital memorials are increasingly common in the web. In order to help designers model applications of the like, we herein present practical recommendations to design digital memorials, considering the technical and cultural peculiarities of addressing death and mourning in digital environments. Designers should try to follow these recommendations with a view to: meeting users’ expectations regarding this kind of social software; ensuring that all types of users will have a satisfactory interaction with the system; preserving the deceased user’s reputation; and promoting awareness of the cultural diversity of death-related domain. We illustrate these recommendations with prototypes of a possible social network for digital memorials. Finally, we discuss challenges and future works concerning these applications.