— 642 650 Celebration & Contemplation, 10th International Conference on Design & Emotion 27 — 30 September 2016, Amsterdam Introduction Dementia is a syndrome that progressively affects cognitive functions such as communication, reasoning and memory, compromising the ability to perform daily tasks, and having an adverse impact on relationships. This work is part of a practice-based doctoral research that explores how design can enable people with dementia and their close social circle to develop personalised strategies communication, with a special focus on leisure and entertainment. Personalisation, used here as “designing or changing (something) for a particular person”(Merriam-Webster, 2016), is seen as a way of addressing the underlying diversity of the experiences of dementia and to provide opportunities for meaningful communication. In this research, people with dementia are invited to take part in the project, so their voices and their experiences are acknowledged throughout the process and in the results. In order to bridge the pronounced differences between the experience of people with dementia and the one of the designer, this research uses an approach based on empathy (Lindsay et al., 2012; Wallace et al., 2013). This approach is also deeply influenced by the person-centred care values, consisting of acknowledging everyone uniqueness as individuals independently of their age and ability, the effort to understand their perspective of the world, respecting and maintaining their personhood —a relational sense of self that is conferred by others¬ (Kitwood, 1997)— which is achieved by promoting vivid social environments and relationships, through meaningful communication (Brooker, 2007). These attitudes are crucial to ensure that the main psychological needs of people with dementia— comfort, attachment, inclusion, occupation and identity, and an overall need for love—are met (Brooker, 2007; Kitwood, 1997). Ethical concerns are present throughout the whole process so that participants’ needs are respected, and potentially paternalistic attitudes avoided (Cowdell, 2006). The preliminary phase of this research consisted of an observation-based study in two care institutions dealing with people with dementia, where the researcher assisted several activity sessions. The direct contact with several individuals with dementia, and the observation of how they engaged, participated and enjoyed these activity sessions, were essential to have a deeper understanding and develop empathy towards different experiences of living with this condition, leading to an enhanced sensibility and ethical awareness on how to work with this group of people (Figure 1). The observation and learning resultant from this first interaction were crucial to define the next steps of research, consisting of bringing together people with dementia and their social circle to codesign personalised strategies for communication. Three previously designed ludic artefacts (Figure 2) were used as a starting point to invite people to participate in this project. These artefacts were designed to be left open for personalisation so that content could be Abstract This pictorial shows the process of involving a lady with advanced dementia and her husband, her main carer, in a design project, and discusses its implications, namely the need of an open and flexible approach to participatory design and the difficulties of interpreting and evaluating non-verbal responses. This work is part of a practice-based doctoral research that explores how design can enable people with dementia and their close social circle to develop personalised strategies communication, with a special focus on leisure and entertainment. Keywords Participatory design, Dementia care, Advanced dementia, Tactile stimulation Tactile explorations in a codesign project involving people with dementia - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Ri