User experience study of an affordable manual standing wheelchair

Abstract

Purpose

The manual user-operated Arise Standing Wheelchair (SWC) is the end-result of multiple design iterations based on comments from user trials. The Arise SWC provides standing functionality, outdoor mobility, affordability, and customizability. This paper describes a user experience study of the Arise SWC’s pre-commercial version.

Methods

Thirty participants (N = 30, 25 Male, 5 Female) were recruited for the study. All the participants were people with spinal cord injury. The study was conducted over a period of six weeks (five participants per week) within the hospital premises under the supervision of clinical personnel. A 30 min interactive training session involved thirteen activities. During the trial period, the participants were trained to perform twenty-two activities to familiarize themselves with the SWC. The participants were also trained to perform four functional usage activities with the SWC. At the end of the study, participant responses to ten outcome measures were captured using a smiley-based Likert-scale questionnaire.

Results

A majority of the participants (93.3%) felt happy when they stood in the SWC. The majority participants (83.3%) preferred the Arise SWC over their current wheelchair. Also, 80% participants anticipated that they could get more work done at home using the standing function of the wheelchair.

Conclusions

A one-time fitting and training ensured optimal effort for the SWC operation, correct posture, and comfortable user experience. With proper dissemination and awareness, it is believed that the Arise SWC will benefit eligible users and improve their quality of life.

IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABILITATION

• The Arise wheelchair provides standing functionality, outdoor mobility, affordability, and customizability.

• Study confirms that incorporating standing functionality can improve the quality of life for wheelchair users.

• The majority of users were happy, felt safe and expected to do more with the standing functionality.

• Study results support further testing in real world conditions beyond the hospital setting.

Keywords:

• Standing wheelchair
• assistive device
• manual
• user-operated
• user experience study
• customizability

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the help of Christian Medical College, Vellore, Mobility India, Bangalore, Association of People with Disability (APD), Bangalore, St. John’s Hospital, Bangalore, and all other organizations/centres/institutions involved in the user testing over the 5-year journey of development. We are thankful for the inputs and contacts enabled by the Spinal Foundation, a pan-India self-help group for users with Spinal Cord Injury. We are grateful to every user who has bravely tried our device and whose feedback has helped us make it to the product stage.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

We thank Wellcome, UK (grant number 105863/Z/14/Z) for funding the project and the partnership of Phoenix Medical Systems in the development and commercialization of this device, and Tata Boeing Aerospace Ltd. for their support for the dissemination videos.