Designing for the final frontier.
DEATH x TECHNOLOGY DIGITAL x PHYSICAL GAME DESIGN
Death x Tech is a conversational card game that helps people talk about death, end of life wishes, and legacy while they’re still very much alive. It grew out of mixed methods research into how Americans avoid planning, rarely back up or curate their data, and almost never clearly communicate what they want to happen to their remains, their belongings, or their digital lives.
A Conversational Game for End of Life
CATEGORY
– Death Industry
– Interactive Entertainment
MY ROLE
– Digital Identity & Data Ethics
– Product Design & Development
– Gaming Mechanism Strategy
– Card Game Content
– Thematic Analysis
– Research Methods
BRIDGING DIFFICULT CONVERSATIONS
Make the Unspeakable Speakable.
Death in the U.S. is both highly meaningful and highly avoided, which leaves most people unprepared and their families without clear guidance about wishes, legacy, or digital identity. At the same time, people are creating vast digital lives on platforms whose policies treat accounts as property, not identity, forcing loved ones through confusing, fragmented processes in moments of grief. Existing tools often bury users in legalistic planning workflows that sidestep real mortality, leaving a gap for something approachable yet genuinely about end of life. That gap is widening against a changing death landscape, with more cremation, green options, DIY rituals, and digital memorials, set against kitchen tables where no one knows how to start the conversation.
CURIOUS CARDS, SERIOUS QUESTIONS
Nervous Laughter Turned into Real Conversation.
Death is inevitable and affects every individual and the relationships they are a part of, yet American culture often treats conversations about death as morbid and taboo.
Death X Tech explores this balance using play to open up conversations while still honoring the complexity and emotional weight of the topic.
The research surfaced a set of consistent gaps: people care deeply about how they die and how they’re remembered, but very few complete advance directives, organize their digital lives, or communicate their wishes to close connections. I translated these gaps into a game format that lowers the barrier to entry by using hypothetical scenarios, playful structure, and values‑driven prompts to make conversations feel safer, more honest, and less clinical. Death x Tech reframes silence as a design problem and offers a small, tangible intervention that turns “we should really talk about this someday” into an actual, shared conversation in everyday spaces like the living room or kitchen table.
INVITING DEATH IN TO LIVE MORE HONESTLY
Validating with Death in the Room
Death x Tech functions as a conversational tool that helps people externalize their values, wishes, and expectations for end of life while reflecting on the physical and digital artifacts they want to pass on. Playtests and research validation show that hypothetical, near‑future scenarios are a gentle but powerful way to unlock real attitudes, emotional readiness, and planning behavior around death. The final game occupies a unique position in a fragmented ecosystem: it bridges death‑positive culture, thanatosensitive HCI, and shifting burial practices, offering families a repeatable way to build shared language and agency around death, legacy, and digital afterlife.
APPROACH
Design for death should be clear, human, and stigma-free, removing bureaucracy, normalizing conversation, and putting people before policies.
These principles were shaped by recurring patterns identified in research on death, digital systems, and user behavior. Interviews, competitive analyses, and cultural studies revealed four consistent themes.
Strengthen human interconnection
Focus on close connections and shared stories rather than individual tasks.
Approach death as part of life, not only as a medical or legal problem.
Normalize Death
Accommodate personal preferences
Allow flexibility in how people participate, what they share, and how far they go.
Gently reveal how decisions—or the absence of decisions affect those who remain.
