Rehabilitation of people with disabilities has become a popular research domain in HCI leading to the emergence of assistive devices. Assistive technology can help people with certain disabilities to function better and improve their quality of life, helping them work, communicate and learn efficiently while maintaining or improving their capabilities. Focusing on cognitive, sensory and learning disabilities, we are currently working on improving the quality of life of children with autism, dyslexia and vision impairment. 

HCI for Children with Special Needs: Autism
HCI for Children with Special Needs: Dyslexia

Virtual Reality (VR) is an emerging technological novelty and is popularly being used to improve people’s quality of life. VR offers miraculous opportunities to help manage terminal illnesses that affects cognitive behavior and make learning more accessible to people with disabilities. It has been proven to be an immersive technology that helps adapt learning experiences and levels the playing field for people with disabilities. At Chisel, we are currently utilizing VR as a medium to enhance and support human well-being, especially for people with disabilities and disorders like aphasia, dementia and depression

HCI for Elderly: Dementia
HCI for Children with Special Needs: Dyslexia

Education in HCI focuses at designing innovative learning environments and technologies. Through an interdisciplinary connection between human-computer interaction and education, our work focuses on how technologies shape, and are being shaped, by learning and collaboration in a variety of real-world settings, such as classrooms, peer and family contexts, and online communities. 

Design, Gender, and Technology

This research area covers both tangible and intangible cultural heritage. Tangible cultural heritage covers material culture and the production of physical artefacts, their maintenance and transmission in a society. Intangible cultural heritage includes the evolving knowledge and skills which is transmitted through learning and tradition.

HCI for Tourism: Khoji App

Child computer interaction (CCI) is the sub-field of HCI that studies how children use interactive products. In contrast with HCI, CCI is still finding its way. Relating to sociology, education and educational technology, connected to art and design, and with links to storytelling and literature, as well as psychology and computing this new field borrows methods of inquiry from many different disciplines.

Design, Gender, and Technology

The progressive curve of technological solutions, the past few years in the medical field is quite impressive but a lot more work is needed to improve healthcare, especially in countries where a majority of mental illnesses and brain disorders are still taboo subjects like depression, anxiety, autism, etc.

HCI4D is an exciting and emerging field in under-resourced and under-developed countries. It is imperative that the multicultural environment and the user be kept in mind when designing specifically for under-developed regions as products built for the western world will not necessarily translate successfully in developing countries. The illiteracy rates, especially in terms of technology are usually high and have to be carefully considered as the main goal is to empower the users in rural areas. Building on various HCI philosophies and practices, we use tools such as Design Thinking, Iterative Design and User-Centered Design to create useful and helpful products for rural communities.