Aditya Chand, HCII, Summer 2005
Faculty Advisor: Prof. Anind Dey

Title: Physical interfaces for semi literate users

   
     
Short
Bio
 

Aditya Chand is a full time Masters Student at HCII. He is interested in cross cultural design, information visualization and collaborative environments.
Aditya holds a Bachelors in Visual Communication Design from IIT Guwahati, India. Before coming to CMU he worked on Interaction Design projects at Media Lab Asia and tackled Usability issues at Human Factors International, Mumbai. Apart from design, he enjoys traveling, photography and basketball.

     
Project Synopsis
 

In developing countries, like India, Illiteracy, non-native language, Computer illiteracy and fear of technology are big hurdles towards getting people to utilize the power of the digital medium/internet [2]. People do not recognize the power of the medium and therefore do not invest resources (time and money) to overcome the learning curve. This is a big hurdle towards creating the critical mass to boost the use of communication methods like email and online communities.
The project aims to help the semi-literate population in rural areas in India to access online information through the use of physical interfaces. The use of physical and visual metaphors can help the novice users overcome the barriers of learning language (English) and technology (mouse and keyboard) [1]. This interface would provide its users an initial glimpse of the power of internet which could be a motivation for them to learn more about the language (English and computers).