Tag Archives: special needs

Foot-operated computer mouse design wins the Red Dot Award for its unique approach to accessibility

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While accessibility controllers like the ones from Xbox only go so far, this concept mouse by Califor Design provides a better way for the disabled to control their laptop. The Foot Mouse is designed for people who are unable to use their hands due to disability or a neurological condition.

The Foot Mouse, as its name so aptly suggests, transfers control to the feet, allowing you to navigate and click by resting your foot on an ergonomically designed device. This mouse includes standard mouse functions like left and right buttons as well as a mouse scroll. The left and right keys are designed to be operated with the toes. The scrolling function is activated when the left and right buttons are simultaneously pressed and deactivated when one of the left or right keys is released. “The concave design of the mouse’s top surface is combined with human-machine engineering principles to ergonomically fit the complex curvature under the foot, ensuring a stable and comfortable user experience”, Califor Design told Yanko Design. “Foot Mouse is designed to fit feet of any width and size and to provide anti-fatigue support for extended periods of use.”

The Foot Mouse is a winner of the Red Dot Design Concept Award for the year 2022.

Designer: Califor Design

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These special eyeglasses by a Japanese startup can cure myopia or nearsightedness

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Myopia or nearsightedness is an extremely common vision condition that afflitcs a lot of people, including me. Essentially what this means is that we can focus on objects that are close, with ease, but struggle with items that are placed further away. These items seem blurred or unclear to us. This usually occurs when a person spends too much time focusing on nearby items, causing our eyeballs to actually change in shape over time, making it too long front-to-back. And with people spending most of their day interacting with screens, it isn’t a shocker how widespread this condition is. In fact, this common condition is growing so rapidly, that it is predicted that by 2050, half of the world’s population will be affected by it. This is where Japanese pharmaceutical startup Kubota decided to step in. They’ve designed special eyeglasses that can improve or even cure Myopia!

Designer: Kubota Glass

Kubota’s wearable design has been amped with an array of nano projectors, which project light at the wearer’s retina in a specific pattern, to cause blurring at short distances, in turn forcing them to look further away. This helps the eyeball to morph back into its original shape and allows one’s vision to return to normal. You’re supposed to wear the glasses for a couple of hours a day, usually when you’re simply relaxing or unwinding in the comfort of your home. With the help of AR tech, the glasses create, “an image environment that makes you feel as if you are looking far away even when you are at home.”

“Projection of a blurred image onto the peripheral part of the retina (myopic defocus stimulation) resulted in a reduction in the axial length of the eye (the length from the cornea to the retina) compared to the target eye — proof of concept has been confirmed.”, said Kubota, after conducting multiple tests in May and August 2020, using various devices.

At the moment only 20 pairs have been produced and gone on sale in Japan. Each eyeglass costs $5700 and comes with a 100% satisfaction guarantee – basically a complete refund if they don’t work. We can’t wait for the glasses to be launched globally, and witness how they could actually help people with Myopia…who knows maybe I could be one of the early bird shoppers!

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Absolutely genius medical stretcher can transform into a wheelchair for patients with less serious injuries

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Although its name doesn’t quite do it complete justice, the Multi Scoop Pro is a rather novel shapeshifting stretcher that also turns into a wheelchair on command. Contrary to what its name may suggest, it isn’t an ice cream machine…

The idea for the Multi Scoop Pro comes from the folks at Studio Rotor, who wanted to create one single medical apparatus that could scoop patients up, function as a stretcher, and even double as a lightweight wheelchair when necessary. Designed for Retter Medical and further developed by IDP Amsterdam for manufacturing, the Multi Scoop Pro comes with a patented mechanism that allows it to split, fold, and lock into either stretcher or wheelchair positions. The Multi Scoop Pro also weighs a mere 10 kgs, giving it a significant advantage over the heavy electrically operated stretcher-lift systems built into ambulances that can weigh 5-6 times the amount.

Designers: Studio Rotor and IDP Amsterdam for Retter Medical

The Multi Scoop Pro gets its name from being able to scoop up patients instead of having them lifted and placed onto the stretcher. The stretcher splits open laterally, allowing it to be placed on either side of the patient on the ground. When the two halves are brought back together again, they scoop the patient onto the stretcher platform, which can then be lifted and transported to the nearest ambulance. For patients with less serious injuries, the Multi Scoop Pro can simply be folded into a wheelchair, allowing a single medic to transport them while they’re comfortably seated.

A prototype unit of the Multi Scoop Pro, co-developed with IDP Amsterdam

The idea for the Multi Scoop Pro started with a broad exploration of the work environment of ambulance personnel. Through research, it became clear that, at least in Amsterdam, most ambulances were gradually phasing out manual stretchers and replacing them with expensive, heavy electrical-powered stretchers that operate like massive car-jacks, using motorized mechanisms to fold flat upon arrival, and lift up after the patient’s been loaded onto the stretcher. The second fundamental problem with this arrangement (aside from cost and weight) was the fact that patients still needed to be lifted ONTO the stretcher. With its scooping design, the Multi Scoop Pro solves the latter problem. For the former, the design weighs a paltry 10 kilograms and costs a fraction of what an electrically operated stretcher would cost.

The fact that the stretcher transforms into a wheelchair is a much-appreciated added bonus. A stretcher isn’t required 100% of the time, especially when the patient is conscious, has just minor injuries, and doesn’t need to be laid down or restrained on a horizontal platform. The transformation takes mere seconds and can be locked into position so the wheelchair doesn’t come undone during transit.

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Electric Guitar with Braille fretboard helps the visually impaired master a new instrument

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While simply color-coordinating or backlighting parts of an instrument may work for regular novices, it doesn’t translate to visually impaired users. Vitar hopes to solve that by covering its entire fretboard with Braille keys that can help blind and vision-impaired people navigate their way around a guitar. Vitar, however, isn’t a traditional electric guitar either – it’s a MIDI instrument styled like a guitar, which also unlocks an entire world of potential with electronic music.

If the Vitar looks a little odd at first, it’s because it isn’t your average Spanish guitar. Designed to electronically send signals to a software (technically known as a Digital Audio Workstation), the Vitar comes with keys that you press with your left hand, indicating the notes you want the guitar to play. However, Vitar doesn’t quite stop right there. Each key located in the guitar’s fretboard comes with a Braille letter embossed on it, allowing even the visually impaired to work their way around the instrument. It’s a classic example of a tiny design detail that radically improves the product’s experience for all its users.

Designers: Eojin Roh, Seonjin Baek, Yujeong Shin

The fascinating part about the Vitar is its unconventional design. The way it was made has nothing to do with acoustics, but rather has everything to do with being intuitive and minimizing the learning curve. The Vitar’s body has an odd asymmetric shape that helps users instantly understand which way it’s supposed to be held (one could argue that it isn’t ambidextrous, although that might come across as pedantic). Strings sit in a recessed chamber on the main body, so the hand or guitar pick knows when to stop (while also giving you a place to conveniently rest your fingers). Guidelines across the main body help the hand navigate around the guitar in an instant, so you spend more time jamming and less time figuring out if you’re holding the instrument right.

Buttons on the base of the electric guitar let you control its built-in speaker/amplifier.

Vitar’s most impressive feat, however, remains its Braille keys. One of the most difficult parts of the guitar learning experience is figuring out which fret triggers which note. Sure, a talented guitar can easily pick this up by ear and with repeated practice, but for a novice, it requires a lot of counting down the frets, examining the corresponding string, etc. Just by simply molding Braille letters onto the individual keys, the Vitar makes the process as easy as pressing a button… quite literally.

While the Vitar is targeted towards visually impaired students, even most regular users can benefit from the sheer muscle memory of their fingertips knowing which key is located where, and what button triggers what note. If it helps us regular folk pick up a bit of braille in the process too, that’s an overall win in my book!

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen uniquely designed and shaped electric guitars. Earlier this year, Ezra Feldman unveiled an unconventional ‘curved’ electric guitar that was designed to offer a much more ergonomic and strain-free experince.

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‘Smart Cane’ for Senior Citizens comes with bone-conducting earphones and object-detecting sensors

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Designed to help augment an elderly user’s hearing, sight, and situational awareness, the Caregiver is a smart cane that leverages sensor-based technologies to make life infinitely better for senior citizens and the specially abled.

If the biggest purpose of technology was to help make lives better, the Caregiver smart cane is proof that the same technology should serve the needs of people beyond the purview of the ‘common user’. While bone-conducting hearing and camera-based smart navigation have been available to us ‘regular folk’ for decades now, the Caregiver leverages the technology to help enrich the lives of the elderly. The smart cane comes with its own built-in GPS tracker, radar-imaging cameras, and bone-conducting earpieces to help its users navigate effectively and hear well. When not in use, the Caregiver docks in its wireless charging base that helps replenish its batteries.

Designer: Ma Tianyu

Before I get into why I think the Caregiver is such a brilliant idea, let’s just get its features out of the way. Unlike archaic-looking walking canes, the Caregiver is a pretty slick, state-of-the-art walking device with a minimal futuristic design language. It has a telescopic heigh-adjusting mechanism for people of different heights, and sports a notification/visbility light on the front that glows ambiently to let others know of the elderly person’s presence… although that’s barely scratching the surface.

One of Caregiver’s most impressive features is its built-in set of earphones that help augment the hearing of its users. The bone-conducting earpieces sit within a charging compartment built into the Caregiver’s design, and can be accessed by simply opening the lid and taking them out. Bone conducting earphones work exceptionally well for people with reduced hearing because the earphones deliver audio directly to the auditory nerve via your skull-bone rather than relying on your eardrum. Given that hearing can deteriorate with age, bone-conducting tech provides the perfect alternative, allowing wearers to listen in on the world around them… albeit with stylish earpieces instead of those archaic-looking hearing aids.

Another pretty nifty accessibility feature is the Caregiver’s ‘smart eye’, a series of radar and imaging sensors located around the shaft of the cane that run object detection algorithms to help people navigate safely. The cane can sense when there’s an object in its path, and uses earphone notifications to alert the user of the presence of things that they may no have noticed – either objects out of their PoV or things in front of them that can’t be seen because of deteriorating eyesight. Either way, the earphones let you know of the presence of an object as well as its general location, so the user is warned.

A sufficiently tech-driven device, the Caregiver comes with its own charging dock that wirelessly juices its battery, eliminating the need for struggling with charging cables, ports, and a host of wires/dongles.

The Caregiver cane also comes with its own companion app that can be used by guardians/assistants/caretakers to track the elderly. The stick itself has a GPS sensor built in that helps track the cane, and each cane even registers the heartbeat of the user by detecting their pulse through both the cane as well as the earpieces.

What’s truly so phenomenal about the Caregiver is its ability to make tech accessible without being daunting. Users don’t need to learn new experiences or unlearn past ones to understand how to use the cane. It’s fairly natural and intuitive in its design, and this makes adopting the new technology much easier for elderly people, instead of having them struggle with a new learning curve at that age.

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This self-driving wheelchair has detachable walker to empower the user to walk with ease

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Age is only a number until your body begins to show signs of aging. When knees begin to wear down, the simplest of tasks – you took for granted – steadily develop into an everyday challenge and then age suddenly becomes a significant number.

Life at this point leans toward dependence which none of us have wanted to experience. To facilitate individuals in considering mobility lesser of a challenge, we have seen tech-enabled walkers, canes, and electric wheelchairs in our time; however, combining the ability of all in a cohesive device, Cobi makes a sublime appearance.

Designer: Hyeon Park, Haeun Jung, Hyuntae Kim, Sookyoung Ahn

Cobi, a means of personal mobility for seniors, is designed one, to positively impact an aged person’s attitude toward life, two, to change the society’s outlook toward aged population which is considered a liability especially when free mobility becomes a task for them.

With something like the matte finished Cobi, the aged generation will lead a better, less dependent, mobile life; it’s a given! To earn such credibility, the accessory is meticulously created in two individual parts: a walker and a mobility device, that combine to form one state-of-the-art wheelchair. Even more exciting; Cobi runs without human intervention.

With its autonomous mobility and onboard button for instant breaking, Cobi is one convenient way for mobility challenged to get from point A to B without external assistance. To ensure a glitch-free ride, Cobi uses laser projection to navigate around obstacles. Provided with a cushioned seat and low backrest, the mobility device has a hide-away footrest that sticks out allowing the rider to rest their feet through transit. For additional convenience, the mobility detaches from the walker at the destination, facilitating the user to head to the areas where the ride cannot go, simply by using the walker as the assistant.

The height adjustable walker has a rubber handle that’s convenient to grip and it has a built-in flashlight to guide the user through dark environments. While the senior person is using the walker, the self-driving Cobi returns to its charging station so the person can avail the ride once it’s back in power and ready to go.

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This wearable tape-dispenser can help correct Braille typos and misprints

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Aptly titled the Braille Correction Device, this hand-worn contraption handles a lesser-considered problem that not many of us think about. Not only is publishing in Braille much more difficult than regular printing, but it’s also rather uncommon. So imagine when you find a publication you’re looking for, but it’s got typos and errors in the print! Correcting Braille misprints is even more of a challenge, although that’s where this nifty little piece of stationery comes in. Designed to work sort of like correction liquid works on a printed text typo, the Braille Correction Device overlays the right character over the wrong one, fixing any errors in print or physical damage to text. It’s simple, intuitive, and is designed to be an entirely analog device.

Designers: Tian-Yi Chen, Chao-Jie Hu, Yi-Xuan Li & Xue-Nan Zheng

Given that Braille is a monospaced language, using the Braille Correction Device is rather easy when it comes to swapping out old characters with new ones. Just like correction fluid helps practically fix small errors (not entire sentences or paragraphs), the Braille Correction Device works on simple, easy-to-fix mistakes.

A winner of the Golden Pin Design Award, the Braille Correction Device is easy to operate. It fits on your right finger and comes with a roll of Braille tape pre-fed into it. Once you’ve located the error, use the dot-puncher to input the right spelling into the tape fed inside the Braille Correction Device. Place your right index finger on the error and hit the button on the side to begin dispensing the tape. Move your finger downward to apply the tape, and hit the button on top of the device to cut the tape once it’s applied over the wrong character.

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Air Chair is a wheelchair that easily integrates into airplane seats

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As a “mobile” person who loves to travel, I can only imagine how difficult it is for persons with disabilities to travel on airplanes and go through airports. They have to rely on the assistance of their companions or the airplane personnel in order to board a plane and they have to keep their wheelchair in storage for the entire flight duration. If it’s a long-haul flight, they have limited mobility and accessibility. That’s why this new design concept for a wheelchair is pretty important to help them have a more convenient traveling experience.

Designers: aamer siddiqui and Ali Asgar

The Air Chair is a concept design for a wheelchair that can be used for an entire travel experience for the person with disabilities. It can be used to go through the airport and once boarded on the plane, it can be integrated into the aircraft seat without having to remove a seat or fold up the wheelchair itself. The idea also is to be able to use the inflight features of the plane and the airplane seat in the wheelchair so that they will still be able to avail of these features while sitting in their own chair.

They were able to create a design that will accommodate the wheelchair even if the plane has a narrow aisle. The seat dimension is 16.5″ which should be able to fit most aircraft seats, at least for the regular-sized plane sections of the Boeing 777-300 plane. The wheelchair itself slides into the seat and should be able to use features like the seatbelt, life vest, and even the inflight infotainment system that the aircraft provides. It has a C-shaped design and has spherical wheels for easy sliding into the seat and should fit like a glove. There’s also a locking mechanism that attaches to the metal bar under the chair that will make it stable and prevent any unnecessary movement the entire flight.

The Air Chair will give passengers with disabilities the freedom to move around on their own if they prefer to, from their home to the airport to the plane and off the plane. The current options that they have can often be demeaning and inconvenient. The next step for the designers is to make a working model and eventually, they should be able to pitch this product to the airline industry and even direct to customers as well. On paper, it’s a well-designed concept that will be able to offer users “freedom, mobility, comfort, and security” when they travel.

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This smart exoskeleton lends superhuman muscle endurance to weak arms

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None of us comes with superpowers (or do we?) normally exhibited by superheroes so casually in movies. Annihilating their enemies ever so skillfully, and getting out of precarious situations even when the odds are stacked heavily against them. In real life though, exoskeletons (mostly in the prototype stage) do bring a degree of superhuman power – assisting the leg, back, or arm muscles of the human body. Yet another promising exoskeleton developed by the researchers at ETH Zurich intends to increase arm strength – especially for people with muscular dystrophy.

They call it Myoshirt, a wearable arm exomuscle to compensate for injuries or conditions restricting the normal movement of the arm. The additional layer of muscles is made out of wearable textile that can be worn over the upper body like an armor jacket. Smart sensors embedded in the vest and cuffs detect the wearer’s intended movement and provide able muscular assistance. More simply put, it is like an artificial tendon as the motor shortens or loosens the cable along the length of the muscles for added power and assistance. This could be anything from lifting a big bottle full of water from a precarious position, to providing thrust for pushing someone upwards.

Designer: ETH Zurich

In the initial tests, the design successfully demonstrated its practical viability. 12 volunteers (10 of them completely healthy) were able to exercise for a longer duration, as endurance increased by 60 percent for ones with muscular dystrophy and 30 percent for uninjured ones. Even better, it shot up to three times the normal for people with spinal cord injury. Most of the volunteers found the wearable to be very easy to use, as they were able to lift their arms or hold things for a far longer duration than normal.

If you were already thinking of exploring the Myoshirt’s abilities in real-life situations, hold your horses for now, as it is still in the early prototype stage. There’s a bulky actuator and external control box that both weigh around 8.8 lbs. So, you’re already leveled up when it comes to having an advantage. For now, the goal of the team is to make the design lighter and smaller – something that can be worn under clothing without causing any uneasiness. According to Michele Xiloyannis, a worker at the Sensory Motor Systems Lab at ETH Zurich, the next phase is about testing the prototype outside the lab and using the result “to further improve it.”

Roadmap for ETH Zurich narrows down the collaboration with their spinoff company, MyoSwiss AG to further refine the working of the exomuscle. To keep things simple for now, the researchers want to focus only on supporting the wearer’s shoulder area to reduce the exoskeleton’s size. Later on, when the product meets fruition they can concentrate on providing muscular support to other parts of the upper body.

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ROUTINE is an alarm clock that is designed with accessibility and beauty in mind

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We take many products in life for granted just because many of us still have nearly complete use of our senses, especially sight, hearing, and touch. We use our smartphones without a second thought about how people who can’t see or touch the screen can navigate our phone-centric world today. Unfortunately, most products are also designed without considering people with special needs, and products that are indeed designed for accessibility often lack the same design appeal as more common products. An alarm clock that wakes up hearing-impaired people in an effective yet satisfying way is one such example, and this concept tries to offer a solution that would delight even those that could hear the alarm go off anyway.

Designer: Gloria Jung

Since the earliest times, alarm clocks have always been aural more than visual, using loud sounds to call attention to themselves and, therefore, the time. It was only with the advent of smart devices with screens that some alarms have taken on a more visual aspect, but even then, the primary way alarms work is to blast you with sound. It’s a simple yet effective method that is, of course, pointless for someone who can’t hear properly.

There are “silent” options available, of course, but they won’t satisfy even some fully-hearing people. Smartwatches vibrate ever so gently and are only effective if you’re already half awake. Vibrating alarms specifically designed for people with hearing problems, on the other hand, are often too strong and give people a rude awakening. Both solutions also don’t offer the same kind of visual appeal and beauty that many alarm clocks have, especially the ones designed specifically to look pretty on top of your desk or bedside table.

ROUTINE takes its inspiration from nature’s silent alarm, light. Many alarm systems and smart lighting now try to use the science and psychology of light to offer a gentler and more natural way to wake up. This alarm clock concept that’s specifically designed for hearing-impaired people uses that same principle not just to wake you up but also to call your attention. The circular face of the alarm gradually lights up closer to the set alarm time until it reaches full brightness. If the person still doesn’t wake up or react to the alarm, it starts blinking with a stronger intensity. Turning off the alarm is as simple as pulling the ball-shaped switch down.

The base of the alarm also functions as a wireless charging pad for phones or other compatible devices. Considering this alarm clock will most likely end up beside your bed, it conveniently provides two functions in one. It helps save up on space, especially since the alarm clock will actually take up some space on any table or drawer.

The ROUTINE alarm clock concept definitely looks attractive with its featureless face and minimalist design. The one odd detail with the concept is that the actual “clock” part of the device is on the base, where a phone will cover it when it is charging. That would require the owner to sit or stand up just to see the time, which might actually be a tactic to get that person up and out of bed.

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