How to Use Known: Building a Memory Portrait for a Loved One

Known is a memory portrait — built with a person while they can still participate, then used by family and caregivers after they can't. It is not a medical record. It is not a task manager. It is a portrait of a person. The person is the subject.

What Known actually does

Known does three things in sequence.

First, it captures memories. Guided questions draw out who the person is — their relationships, their comforts, what to avoid, what lights them up, what they built. Anyone in the family can add to the portrait. Every entry carries the name of whoever shared it.

Second, it turns memories into care guidance. A raw memory says 'he loves Sinatra.' Care guidance says 'play Capitol-era Sinatra quietly in the morning — his body relaxes even when he doesn't say anything.' That interpretation is written by family, reviewed by family, and approved by family. Nothing reaches a caregiver until a family member has signed off on it.

Third, it delivers what matters to caregivers. A private link generates a Known Card — a one-page view anyone can read before walking into the room.

Setting up your household

The first time you sign in, you create or join a household — the family group a portrait belongs to. Everyone in the same household can see and add to the same portraits. If a sibling or spouse wants access, invite them into the household rather than creating a second portrait.

Creating a portrait

To start, create a portrait with the person's name, what you call them, and your relationship — Father, Mother, Partner.

Then begin a capture session. You'll say who is sharing: the person themselves, in their own words — questions are asked directly to them — or a family member speaking on their behalf, where questions are phrased about the person instead. You'll pick a type: Memory (a durable portrait fact) or Today note (temporary care context, shown for 7 days).

Questions appear one at a time, covering people, places, routines, comforts, what to avoid, work, music, faith, food, identity, and practical day-to-day care topics like safety and mealtimes. You can answer, skip, stop, or come back. Every answer saves immediately. There is no minimum. If a question is hard to answer, you can see how other families have answered something similar without leaving the question.

The portrait book

All captured memories appear as a book — swipeable, paginated. Each entry shows the question, the answer, and who shared it.

A small dot on each entry shows its guidance status. Grey means no guidance yet. Amber means a draft was written but not yet approved. Green means approved and visible to caregivers. Red means the guidance was rejected.

Adding care guidance

Tap any entry to open the enrichment form. The original memory is always shown, unchanged. Below it, you write the care interpretation.

Card label — a short phrase for the caregiver view. Guidance — what the caregiver should actually do. Be specific. Suggested phrase — exact words the caregiver can use. When this matters — morning, agitated moments, before meals. Tone — warm, neutral, cautious, or avoid.

Nothing reaches a caregiver until you tap Save & approve. You can save a draft first. You can remove or change approval at any time.

The Known Card

The Known Card is the 30-second view. A core card — who they are, good topics, what they respond well to, what to avoid, people they trust, and what to try when they seem confused — is built for a quick read and for printing. A second tier of additional care details (safety, personal care, meals, and daily routine) is available on screen for anyone who wants more, but is left off the printed page to keep it to one.

Sections populate automatically from approved guidance, and show who contributed. Family can also tap any section to write it directly — it saves as you type, and is marked as edited by family with an option to reset back to the automatic version. There is a one-sentence portrait at the top for whoever is meeting the person for the first time.

The card can be printed or saved as a PDF.

Today notes that notice patterns

Today notes capture what's happening right now — a good morning, a rough afternoon, what helped. They're visible to the household for 7 days and don't become part of the portrait on their own.

But if the same thing shows up across several notes — a name, a topic, a routine — Known notices and offers to turn it into a memory worth capturing properly, with your approval either way.

Sharing with caregivers

From the portrait, enable the caregiver link. This generates a private URL to send to anyone who needs it — a caregiver, a facility, a visiting nurse.

When approved care guidance exists for a memory, the care card shows that guidance. When no guidance has been written yet, it shows the raw family answer as a fallback. Drafts, rejected guidance, private entries, and today notes never appear. The caregiver cannot edit.

The helper link is separate — it gives a caregiver or helper a way to leave notes for the family without seeing the portrait. They can tag a note (what helped, what to avoid, ate or drank, mood, follow-up needed) and describe what happened. Notes appear in the portrait for 7 days.

What caregivers never see

These are hard rules, enforced at the data layer:

· Draft enrichments — written but not approved, never shown · Rejected enrichments — family decided not to use, never shown · Private entries — excluded from enrichment queries entirely · Today notes — not enrichable, not on the care card

Note: when no approved guidance exists for a memory, the care card may show the raw family answer as a fallback. The family controls which memories appear on the card.

The order of control

Family captures. Family writes guidance. Family approves. Caregiver reads.

AI is not in this loop yet. When it arrives, it will draft guidance for family to review — a pencil, not a decision-maker. Nothing AI-generated will reach a caregiver without family approval.

Common questions