About jellow AAC Communicator:
Jellow AAC Communicator (Jellow Basic Communicator) is a friendly Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) solution that uses icons to aid communication in children learning to speak or those with difficulty with speech and language. Jellow Basic is conceived and designed exclusively for children or early learners. Jellow Basic helps children to communicate as well as learn to speak – especially children with Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Dyslexia and other Oral Motor Disabilities. Jellow Basic has already been established as a reliable platform. And has been recognized for its ability as an effective communicator with international awards as affirmation, viz., the Unicef Innovation Funds Award, National Award, Microsoft Design Expo Award, mBillionth South Asia Award and others. Jellow Basic Communicator has been deliberately made available at free of cost as a gesture of inclusiveness, so that it remains easily and widely accessible, especially to those children who need such assistance the most.

User Group Characteristics and Problem Identification:
Jellow addresses autistic children those are affected by cerebral palsy. Cerebral palsy, which is often misunderstood as a disability or a disease pertaining to brain efficiency, is a medical condition involving lack of motor sensory coordination, which affects the control of the muscles and leading to muscle impairment.

This affects (among other functions) the speech and writing abilities of the cerebral palsy and prevents him/her from communicating with others.
Inability to communicate could lead to isolation outside of their special school support structure, distance them from the mainstream world and set in frustration amongst the cerebral palsy.

Design Solution:
Jellow is an attempt to bridge the gap in communication between those affected by cerebral palsy and those not. The basis of the product is an interface and is driven by four concurrently acting features - color, shape, motion and sound - corresponding to the sensory modes of the visual, the tactile and the aural. The interaction itself is facilitated by touch of varying intensities including pressing, thumping, squeezing, turning and, of course, by touching. Those not affected by cerebral palsy may additionally use speech along with touch.

The design, development, distribution and promotion of Jellow Basic has gone through multiple iterations. The development of Jellow Basic follows the iterative process of user-centric, participatory design as we continually improve the application and add new features into the application.

Designed with Feedback:
As mentioned, Jellow Basic is designed iteratively with regular feedback from users namely children, parents, therapists, teachers, care givers.

The following gives an idea of the nature of the feedback received vis-à-vis the user categories:

Collaborative Inputs:
It is an inspiring experience for me to work very closely with the collaborating/partnering institutions and stakeholders, namely, rehabilitation therapists and caregivers of individuals with speech impairments in order to obtain their valuable inputs and suggestions during the entire product development/improvement process.

My responsibilities: User research and data collection, Guiding the overall User Experience (UX) Strategy, Designing user interactions and User Interface (UI) for Jellow AAC application which is built for autistic children. Also involved in the Usability Testing of app and content development.

Details about Jellow is available at: www.jellow.org