Cooking in a wheelchair, simplified.
Cooking is an activity that brings comfort, relaxation, sustenance, and fun for people of all ages and backgrounds. For wheelchair users, however, cooking can be a tedious, unsafe, and ultimately inaccessible activity.
Wheelchair users navigate the kitchen at a lower height when seated and often with diminished core strength. These factors contribute to many difficulties when moving hot and heavy pots and pans from elevated surfaces like a stove to lap-height and vice versa. With the lap serving as a makeshift staging area, wheelchair users often have to deal with additional complications like burns and spills.
Wheelchair users need a solution that allows them to easily move hot and heavy objects from lap to stove/sink height safely.
Current solutions do not address this product opportunity gap very well. Wheelchair users may use a cutting board in their lap to transport heavy and hot objects, which can be dangerous and does not help with the difficulty of lifting the objects. Alternatively, the user may have a kitchen arranged such that they can slide the object along the counter. Aside from wheelchair users, other stakeholders include their family or caretakers and device manufacturers.
Meals & Wheels designed a solution with the wheelchair user's needs in mind, making any kitchen accessible without the need for expensive renovations. Attaching to the wheelchair, the motorized platform allows users to utilize a stable surface which they can lift and lower to a desired height without using core or arm strength. The raised lips provide additional protection from spills and burns. The hinged arms on the sides of the surface can extend outwards to be flush with counters, making it easy to move pots and pans on and off without complication. Additionally, the device does not impede mobility and is effective in any kitchen.
Our Solution
Research Insights
We worked with 8 wheelchair users who helped us gain insight into common pain points in and around the kitchen. Some of the most notable insights gained centered around the use of cutting boards on the lap to carry and stage items, how the lack of core strength affected how users maneuvered items, and how the height of countertops posed issues with accessibility and leverage. The pictures below represent some of these ideas presented during our virtual interviews.
User Interviews
Based on these conversations, we were able to put together a journey map that better outlines the user experience in the kitchen. Below is a step by step example of what a wheelchair cook feels and does while making pasta in the kitchen.
Prototyping
We explored our top 4 concepts through low fidelity prototypes. From left to right in the series of GIFs below, we have:
1. Counter Lift
2. Four Bar
3. Side Lift
4. Trolley
These prototypes allowed the team to understand the pros and cons of each design, specifically accessibility and maneuverability. Following up with a few user interviewees, we were able to gain the necessary insight to ultimately choose the Four Bar as our final product. This product was chosen because it was the most compact and could double as a work surface for food prep. One issue that was brought up was that it would be difficult to design a product that was modular enough to attach to many different designs of wheelchairs.
Our initial prototype concept of the Four Bar imagined that the user would load and unload objects from the front of the platform. Geometric constraints made it very challenging to design, however, our user interviews guided us to the idea of loading and unloading from the side.
Product Design
The following images below better visualize our final product, clearly showing how the device can be attached to a wheelchair. A four bar linkage was used to ensure the raising surface would remain level throughout the range of motion. The handles easily fold up and down, depending on if the user is sliding or transporting an object. As shown in the last photo, the surface is able to support large pots that fit comfortably within the user's reach.
The Team
From Left to Right: Nicholas Callegari, Rebecca Sung, Ani Gottiparthy, Miyuki Weldon
