Making Space for Social Sharing: Insights from a Community-Based Social Group for People with Dementia

People with dementia face major challenges in maintaining active social interaction. Designing digital tools for social sharing within families and care facilities has been well explored by HCI research, but comparatively less work has considered community settings. Situated in a community-based program for storytelling and socializing, our field observations and semi-structured interviews with people living with early-middle stage dementia, family caregivers, and program facilitators illustrate both positive and challenging aspects of social activities. We contribute a nuanced understanding of participants' social lives and identify four factors that aid in achieving positive outcomes: effective agencies for social interaction, normalized and friendly environments, collaboration and teamwork, and mediating social cues and communication. Finally, we examine our findings through the lens of past HCI work and offer insights for designing new social technologies to diversify the range of social spaces in community settings, through expanding peer collaboration, leveraging physical and virtual spaces, creating open-ended experiences, and developing flexible platforms.