Reintroducing the Affected Hand: Designing Gross Motor Assistive Input for Desktop Interaction

This project explores how people with hemiplegic cerebral palsy can bring their affected hand back into desktop interaction, not by replicating fine motor control, but by designing for the gross motor abilities they already have. Developed through co-design with one participant, the work moved through movement analysis, workflow observation, and multiple prototype iterations informed by occupational therapy consultation and user testing sessions. The result is a modular soft-circuit input system: repositionable press-down keys with multimodal feedback, designed to sit within the user's existing workspace and complement their current assistive setup. Rather than replacing what works, the system opens a role for the hand that's been left out.