About Cariad Interactive

Cariad Interactive is a London / Cardiff based partnership between Wendy Keay-Bright and Joel Gethin Lewis. We collaborate on real world design challenges at the intersection of the Arts and Technology to make extraordinary interactive experiences.

Our most popular projects, ReacTickles, ReacTickles Magic and Somantics have generated software that has been universally adopted worldwide. Both Somantics and ReacTickles have been included on the Research Autism and ICT SEN best apps list since 2013. A previous project, the ReacTickles Creativity Box CD and resources were successfully marketed via several well known educational software distributors in Europe, the United States and Australia.

Cariad Interactive undertakes research and development projects and consultancy that focus socially responsible design in local contexts. Our collaborative design ethos values stakeholders and end users as essential informants throughout the creative process. Open innovation allows us to compete aggressively on price and availability of our work.

Previous projects have been aimed at young autistic people and adults with profound and multiple learning difficulties, but Cariad Interactive intends to widen the remit of its projects and believes there are many relevant adjacent opportunities.

Cariad Interactive are interested partnering with people to create socially responsible outputs and outcomes. See our Projects, Research or Workshops for more details.

By using consumer hardware and open source tools wherever possible we are committed to designing distributable, low cost applications that compete on price, ease of use and function with other commercial available solutions. By working with the professional design and interaction community we bring commercial rigour to arts based tools.

Our projects have been awarded funding from NESTA (National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts), The Rayne Foundation, The HEA (Higher Education Academy), TSB (Technology Strategy Board), JISC/TechDIS, the National Film Board of Canada and Cardiff Metropolitan University.

From our research and development work we recognise that many groups are interested in how new software and hardware could be tailored for very specific environments and needs. In fact, we are inspired by how people design interaction, using technology to discover meaning and purpose.

The consultancy we offer aims to give people the agency and confidence to adapt technologies to their own needs. We have had many years experience designing in real-life settings – schools, community and therapy centres – co-creating applications that are responsive to individual interests.

We will usually begin with a site visit, where we can fully understand your organisation’s day-to-day needs and the spaces in which activities are likely to be hosted. We will bring hardware and software so that you can quickly begin to experiment. As part of our research we have developed video documentation, evaluation and reflection tools, which can be demonstrated and further adapted if desired.

We are committed to learning about your progress and in helping to stimulate new ideas as your confidence and ambition evolves. Our portfolio of research, applications and performances is continuously growing, for this reason we offer Cariad Interactive as a community of social entrepreneurs, in which users are vital stakeholders.

Cariad Interactive has delivered consultancy, practitioner workshops and events around the world. Recipients include the National Autistic Society, Autism Cymru, Nasen, Scope Victoria and Hirstwood Training.