Changing How We See the World: Inclusive Augmented Reality for Health and Wellbeing

About the Project

This research offers an exciting opportunity to explore how Augmented Reality (AR) can be designed and applied to improve health, wellbeing, and inclusion. AR overlays interactive digital content on the real world, providing immersive yet grounded experiences that can engage, support, and include individuals who might otherwise face barriers to participation.

The research aims to investigate how AR can enhance quality of life, promote engagement, and enable meaningful social interaction in three illustrative domains:

Health: AR as an assistive tool for individuals with neurological disabilities. Many people with conditions such as cerebral palsy or acquired brain injuries experience challenges in accessing and participating in everyday activities. AR can serve as an assistive technology that enhances independence, supports communication, and helps navigate environments more effectively, while also offering opportunities for light rehabilitation through guided, engaging tasks. By augmenting real-world spaces with interactive and supportive elements, AR has the potential to improve day-to-day care, encourage gentle movement, and enrich the overall user experience.

Wellbeing: AR-enhanced activities designed for the workplace, such as guided movement breaks or creative, collaborative exercises, can improve employee wellbeing and productivity. There is growing evidence that structured wellbeing interventions can reduce stress, improve mood, and lower absenteeism and presenteeism. AR has the potential to make such interventions more engaging and accessible by integrating them seamlessly into the work environment, offering interactive and personalised experiences that can help employees recharge, stay motivated, and improve focus and performance on real-world tasks.

Inclusion: AR can help break down physical and social barriers, enabling inclusive participation in activities that are often inaccessible to individuals with mobility impairments, neurological conditions, or other challenges. By augmenting real-world environments with interactive and engaging content, AR can transform everyday spaces into shared experiences that foster collaboration, curiosity, and social connection. For example, AR can bring nature-based or team-based activities into safe, accessible settings, allowing everyone to participate equally regardless of their physical abilities. This inclusive approach not only promotes social belonging and confidence but also raises awareness among peers and colleagues, creating environments that value diversity and participation for all.

These examples illustrate the potential of AR as a tool for accessible, inclusive, and meaningful interventions that blend physical, cognitive, and social benefits. While Virtual Reality (VR) has been widely explored in these contexts, its fully immersive nature can be overwhelming or unsuitable for certain groups. AR, by keeping users connected to their real environment while adding interactive elements, may offer a more appropriate and effective alternative for sensitive populations.

Your research will include:

• User-centred design and development of AR interventions, informed by engagement with stakeholders such as therapists, educators, and end-users.
• Prototyping and implementing AR experiences using platforms such as Meta Quest 3, Pico 4, or Apple Vision Pro.
• Evaluating the usability, accessibility, and impact of your interventions through mixed methods, combining qualitative feedback and quantitative measures of outcomes.

You will be encouraged to focus your research on one or more of the above domains, depending on your interests and emerging findings. The project is highly interdisciplinary, sitting at the intersection of human–computer interaction, assistive technology, digital wellbeing, and inclusive design. It is well suited to candidates motivated by creating technology that makes a measurable difference to people’s lives.

This research has the potential to contribute to new knowledge and practice in how AR can be designed for accessibility and inclusion, inform policy and service provision, and advance the role of emerging technologies in health and wellbeing.

The successful applicant will join a supportive research community and have opportunities to collaborate with clinical partners, educators, and technology developers. You will gain skills in mixed-reality development, co-design methods, user studies, and impact evaluation, equipping you for a career at the forefront of inclusive digital innovation.

Funding Notes

there is no funding for this project