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In this paper we wish to contribute to the recent ICT-design for and reflection of the application field of residential care homes. In doing so, the contribution of the paper is twofold: we wish to highlight some aspects of the every-day life of institutionalized elderly people - trust, sociality, and memory - which not only provoke reflection on design ideas but also on the socio-technical nexus in which design for the elderly has to take place. This domain, we suggest, is one where the 'parachuting in' of technology is unlikely to prove successful, for reasons we examine below. Further, we suggest that design for and with the elderly carries with it some specific problems. We illustrate our methodological reflections by means of an ongoing empirical research project which aims at the development of a large-screen display for a residential care home.