Wheelchair Design Analysis by Using Ethnographic Research

Abstract

This work focuses on benefits of introducing ethnographic research into specifically design engineering field. Ethnographic research is an emerging branch of research which uses scientific techniques like anthropology and sociology. Ethnographic research is done through participant observations and field work [5]. In ethnographic study, minds of people or groups of people are studied. Such method of research can be very useful in analyzing the reliability of a design of engineering product [4]. Further this work will be focusing on the design of a wheelchair, and investigates devices available to disabled users and looks at the design of a modern, performance option aiming to improve the usability of a wheelchair [1]. As Around 10% of global population and 2.5% of Indian population is suffering from one or other type of the disability and they use wheelchair for their mobility. Therefore, it can be beneficial to study the design of basic manual wheelchair by studying the minds of people or rather various groups of people who are associated with wheelchair by ethnographic research. The work begins with an ethnographic research of human factor engineering and ergonomic study for the design of wheelchair and main objective of this work is to concentrate the use of simulation in analyzing the critical part of the wheelchair modelling and evaluating the wheelchair design based on human factor using finite element analysis.