Social isolation is one of the greatest issues facing an ageing population.

Innovation Design Engineering graduate Ruby Steel spent eight months working with older people in both care homes and living independently, finding that as their mobility decreased, or as family members and friends passed away, they became increasingly isolated. Many of them had not spoken to anyone for days.

Dial Log aims to reconnect them with people who have similar interests. Ruby decided that linking through shared interests would be much more effective and have longevity rather than motivating people to connect out of pity.

The system comprises a telephone-based social network and audio interface that doesn’t require access to the internet. Once a profile is created, the service matches users to those with similar interests and alerts users to messages or calls. Conversations are recorded to form a library of stories, though users can opt-in or out of having chats recorded.

Ruby tested the service with ten conversations, including linking a post-war actress based in London with a younger actress based in Los Angeles. The two swapped stories about the changes in the industry.

‘We found that because it was a genuine shared interest, people wanted to continue conversations,’ says Ruby.

‘Older people were split between being really keen and having completely lost confidence. When you don’t have the validation that you get from work, or from your family, it can lead to a complete lack of confidence. One 100-year old woman told me that she didn’t have anything to say. It just takes one step, though,’ she adds.

Ruby, who intends to apply to Innovation RCA to develop Dial Log, is now looking at how it might become a viable public service. This could be through offering advertising across the audio interface, or it could be through discussions with a firm like BT, which might consider such a service as part of its corporate social responsibility programme.

‘It’s a relatively cheap service to set up and it can sustain itself – people just need an actual telephone line.’

Age UK’s professor James Goodwin, and one of the awards judges, comments: ‘ This addresses two critical needs of an ageing population – social isolation and loneliness, and the break-up of intergenerational relationships. It does so in an area of few proven product design solutions.’