This was a final year Design project of Master of Design program at School of Design Studies, Dehradun, India.
The following project was to design mode of transportation for mobility impaired person for outdoor use. Three wheeled human powered vehicle that also offers affordability, comfort and ease the efforts required to operate the Human Paddled Vehicle.
Project was divided in 5 stages:
1. Initial design brief and design research
2. Research analysis and narrow down to final design brief
3. Ideation and design approach finalization
4. Concept finalization, detailing
5. Product engineering and making scaled model
Starting with initial design brief “To design self-driven vehicle for mobility impaired person to ease routine commute”, scope of the project was finalized. Current mobility solutions were studied with factors like affordability and keeping usability in mind.
User survey was conducted in Dehradun, Pune and Mumbai with the help of various NGO’s.
Total 12 user’s interviews were conducted and various tricycle manufacturing facilities were visited during the process.
Based on research analysis final design brief was framed as “To design mode of transportation for mobility impaired person for outdoor use. Three wheeled human powered vehicle that also offers affordability, comfort and ease the efforts required to operate the Human Paddled Vehicle”.
Various factors were considered while designing the vehicle. Also design approach was finalized.
Mood board was created using key words and images selected to define product attributes.
Taking inspiration from the mood board and key product attributes ideation sketches were done for the tricycle to explain new proposed mechanism and its various individual components like frame, seat, footrest and handle bar
Out of the various concepts one that achieves all the design criteria that we had set out to achieve keeping in mind the user and his needs was selected.
Individual components and features were detailed and defined along with material selection for user comfort, maintenance and manufacturing ease. Color options were suggested for the final concept of the tricycle.
Scaled prototype was created to present and validate the final concept along with all the design features, mechanism, color, materials and finishes.
