The size, design, and functional characteristics of mobility aids have become increasingly diverse over the past decades. Various types of powered wheelchairs and scooters have become commonplace and are being used by a broader and more varied range of people with disabilities. This growing diversity among both mobility aids and people using them has underscored the need for research to collect data upon which existing criteria for accessibility, particularly design specifications for facilities and vehicles, can be assessed. In its update of the Americans with Disabilities Act Accessibility Guidelines (ADAAG), the Board received comments from the public urging changes to various long-standing specifications for wheelchair access in order to better accommodate motorized devices, which can be larger than standard manual wheelchairs and which have different maeuvering characteristics.
Much of the research upon which common accessibility requirements are based is dated and no longer representative of today's product market or the population of mobility aid users. Most of the research that had been done involved a limited range of human subjects who used standard manual wheelchairs. To date, reliable data on powered devices and their users remains quite limited. To fill this knowledge gap, the Board is sponsoring a multi-year project to help develop a database on human measures that takes into account the various types of mobility aids now in use.
The Board's funding will further work underway by the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center (RERC) on Universal Design at the University at Buffalo, New York. The Center, part of a network of rehabilitation research entities funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, uses research, product development, and information dissemination to create new resources for Universal Design practice. Universal Design, as a design practice, emphasizes careful planning and execution so that a product, environment, or system is easily usable by the broadest range of people. The Center has developed and tested protocols for collecting static and dynamic measurements of people who use various types of wheelchairs and scooters. The aim is to establish a database on mobility aids and user sizes and functional task performance that will support the development of three-dimensional digital models of wheelchair and scooter users. Such models would provide a valuable tool in evaluating accessibility specifications and in the planning and design of products and spaces.
The Board's funding broadens the scope of the Center's project by expanding the type of data to be collected. The Board is particularly interested in data on space requirements, maneuvering parameters, reach ranges, and other key measures and dimensions. These include fundamental static measures, such as the footprint and volume of occupied mobility aids, and dynamic measures, such as maneuvering for turns and in confined spaces. The Center has developed measurement protocols to collect this type of data through ongoing research.
As part of the first phase of the Board's project, the Center will organize a consortium of experts who will further review the measurement and data collection protocols. Various research centers and leaders in the field of human factors research have agreed to participate in the Consortium on Anthropometry of Disability. Subsequent phases of the project will focus on the collection and organization of data which will be done through several participating research centers in different geographic locations.
For further information on the RERC on Universal Design and its research program, visit its website at www.ap.buffalo.edu/lrercudl or contact the Center at (800) 628-2281 (phone), (716) 829-3861 (fax), or rercud@ap.buffalo.edu (e-mail).
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