Power Wheelchair Training

Share-control Platform for Power Wheelchair Training

The challenge: The challenge was to develop a shared-control platform for occupational therapists to use when training people with cognitive impairments to drive power wheelchairs

Design Team: Emma Smith, Me, fellow researchers from the University of British Columbia and University of Toronto

The context: It is difficult to train individuals, who live with cognitive impairments, to drive power wheelchairs. Forward chaining method which is a way of breaking down the driving tasks to simpler steps and getting the users to learn one step at a time is a one common training approach. However, a shared control platform is necessary for this method of training.

The approach: a mix of participatory research and human-centered design techniques were used for this work. We conducting interviews, prototyping and test driving session with occupational therapists to understand their preferences and ways of using a shared-control platform for purpose of training.

Key learning or insights: directional control was more preferred compared to proportional control in the training process, an emergency stop was the most important feature according to the OTs, this shared-control interface can enable the OT to break down tasks to simple steps and get the participant to learn one simple step at a time

The impact of findings: proposed key design features which were implemented and currently it is being used in a long-term study with potential for commercialization

My specific role: I was the lead technical design interviewer for the qualitative study and helped with the data analysis and proposed design recommendations