Designing for people living with dementia (PLWD) is challenging . The benefits of involving PLWD in the design process are widely represented in literature. However, ethical and practical considerations can make it difficult to include PLWD. In these cases there’s a need for approaches to transfer unique experiences with PLWD from one designer who had experiences with PLWD to members of the design team who are unable to meet PLWD. The aim of the doctoral research is to develop accessible handover approaches to be used in the professional design context. This paper describes three concerns that emerged from research thus far (i.e. a literature review and ethnographic research); (1) the designers’ interpretation, (2) the uniqueness of each experience, and (3) the search for methods able to transfer these experiences. These concerns provide a framework for the development of handover approaches, validated with student-designers. These student cases are now in the process of being analysed in order to make conclusions for future research to build on, however the first insights gained from four past student cases are shared in this paper.

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