Designed for the Rest of Us

Dynamic Controls have integrated the iPhone into the wheelchair. Their iChair application let’s a user display status of the chair, navigate, control appliances, and much more. A great example of how a mainstream device can be adapted for assistive technology use. Dynamic have posted a video and a picture below shows the general context.

The iPhone mounts on an arm, the iChair application provides touch screen access to a lot of functionality.

Reena Jana of BusinessWeek wrote an interesting article How tech for the disabled is going mainstream. She discusses how designing products to work for disabled people can lead to products for the masses. A great example is the Apple iPod shuffle, with it’s capability for voice navigation that works for blind users or people who want an eyes-free interface. She quotes an interesting observation from Peter Mahoney of speech recognition company Nuance – “While the disabled aren’t a significant percentage of our users today, they are our biggest power users – they help us push the envelope”.