Simple technology for real-world problems.
We look for everyday problems — particularly problems encountered by older adults — and ask whether simple technology can provide a useful, practical solution.
A simple customizable talk board that helps people communicate when speaking is difficult.
Record bedtime stories, your memories, and your voice for the people you love.
Bring people together and build connections while singing the songs you love.
Our current projects are free to use. Try them, use them, and help us learn what works.
Ready to Try Free to use
Sometimes a person understands what is being said but has difficulty communicating verbally.
Marilyn Speaks provides a simple customizable talk board. Touch a large button and the device speaks the phrase.
It is designed to be simple and immediately usable. It runs in a web browser, and it is a working prototype people can use now.
For recommended — but not required — hardware, press Learn More.
Ready to Try Free to use
You can start by recording a bedtime story for your grandchild, niece or nephew to enjoy.
Saving Memories Forever is a working prototype for easily recording and preserving personal stories, voices and memories.
Recording an entire life story can feel overwhelming. Recording a bedtime story, a family story, a song or a personal message for a child in the family is much easier — for a grandchild, a niece or nephew, or any young person you care about.
The recording can be enjoyed now, and it also preserves that person's voice and story for the future.
In Development Free to use
Building connections through song.
My Folk Circle uses simple technology to help people come together, sing familiar songs, and build lasting connections.
It is designed to make it easy for people to start and continue their own folk circles — using music as a way to bring people together.
For recommended — but not required — hardware, press Learn More.
Better Life Makers was founded on a simple idea: technology has become unnecessarily difficult for many people, and we take a particular interest in the everyday problems that difficulty creates for older adults.
We start with a real-world problem and use technology to create the simplest practical solution.
That interest shapes which problems we take on, not who a project is for. Anyone who has the problem a project addresses is welcome to use it, whatever their age.
Good technology should make the system work without requiring people to learn the technology.
Two small examples
Both are steps taken out of the way rather than features to learn.
This site is here so people can find the projects. It is not a gateway anyone has to come through each time they want to use one. Once you know a project, you can go straight to its own website — and, where the device supports it, save it to your Home Screen for direct access.
Marilyn Speaks, Saving Memories Forever and My Folk Circle are examples of how we work — not the limits of what Better Life Makers can be.
The three current projects are a beginning. Over time we would like this way of working to be repeatable: bringing together people who understand a real-world problem with the people needed to manage, design, develop, test, launch and, where appropriate, maintain a practical solution.
Future projects may take different forms. Some may remain free public projects, like the three above. Others could be developed for organizations, communities, businesses, groups or individuals, where Better Life Makers is paid for development, implementation, customization, project management, maintenance or ongoing support.
In time that could mean a network of Better Life Makers — project managers, developers, designers, subject-matter specialists, testers, and implementation and support people — assembled around a carefully chosen problem, rather than one organization or one person needing every skill.
That network does not exist yet, and Better Life Makers is not taking on paid development work today. It is the direction we are working toward.
We have limited capacity and can consider only a small number of potential projects. We are interested in well-defined real-world problems rather than ideas for apps or products.
The problems that fit best affect an identifiable group of people rather than one unusual situation, look as though relatively simple technology could make a meaningful difference, and can be built, run and maintained without a large development organization, extensive ongoing administration, complicated hardware or major infrastructure. We have a particular interest in problems affecting older adults.
Please consider these questions before contacting us
There is no need to design the software or provide technical specifications. Tell us the problem, the people affected, what they do about it now, and the result you would want.
support@betterlifemakers.org
Send us your problem, question, or suggestion. If you know the device and operating system you were using, please include them. If you don't know, that's fine.
Submitting a problem does not mean Better Life Makers will develop it, and we cannot promise that every problem will be fixed or every suggestion built. Because our capacity is limited, we may not be able to reply personally to every message. We may also write back to ask whether you would be willing to try a possible fix or improvement.
Our current projects are provided free to use. Voluntary contributions help Better Life Makers continue developing and testing simple technology solutions to real-world problems.
Support is entirely optional. No contribution is required to use any of our current projects.
Better Life Makers welcomes conversations with foundations, organizations, businesses, community and senior-serving organizations, and others interested in supporting the development of simple technology solutions to real-world problems, or in helping make additional projects possible.
Please write to us directly and we will be glad to talk.
support@betterlifemakers.org
We would be glad to hear from you. Questions and feedback on our projects are always welcome.
support@betterlifemakers.org
Better Life Makers does not sell your personal information. We do not use information submitted through our projects for advertising or marketing.