Powered by collaborative and empathic design, the next generation of designers and engineers are working to make life easier for wheelchair and mobility device users.

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign graduate student Carter Schott is collaborating with a team of student designers and Beckman’s (dis)Ability Design Studio to develop Sol: a mountable wheelchair light. Sol’s purpose is to improve the visibility of people who use mobility devices in settings like classrooms. 

“I create assistive technologies in order to help myself with my daily activities, and by creating these technologies for myself, I know that they’re also applicable for other people with disabilities,” Schott said. “What I personally believe in is that accessibility should not hinder design — it should be what provokes and strives for innovation.”

Schott, who has muscular dystrophy that results in reduced upper body mobility, has had difficulty getting the attention of professors during class. To address this problem, he had the idea to create a wheelchair-mountable light, which, like a raised hand, could be turned on to signal that a student has a question.

The light could also assist with visibility in other settings. For example, wheelchair users are usually below the line of sight of drivers, which can make locations like parking garages especially hazardous.

Schott refined his idea with sketches, which became computer models and eventually 3D-printed prototypes. He designed every component of the light himself, including the attachment points, circuitry and light fixture. Eventually, he worked with the (dis)Ability Design Studio to assemble a larger team, which includes four industrial design students (Zoe Niezyniecki, Hailey Smith, Niveditha Iyengar and Emma Morley) and a graphic design student (Baoxu Liang).

“These students really want to do things that matter while they’re here as students,” said Susann Sears, the assistant director of Disability Resources and Educational Services and a co-director of the (dis)Ability Design Studio. “They’re looking at impacting their communities. I think they feel as though this work is going to go somewhere, and that it’s going to help their futures.”

The dis(Ability) Design Studio is a collaborative center located in the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology and supports user-focused design of assistive technologies. To Deana McDonagh, the studio’s founder, it is important that these technologies are designed by, not just designed for, the people who will be using them.

Sol is a USB powered, LED light attached to a rod that mounts to the back of a wheelchair. The LED shines into a frosted acrylic loop which diffuses the light, allowing it to not be blinding or distracting while still being high visibility. A switch, mountable to a wheelchair arm, controls the light’s modes. For example, Sol has always-on and flashing options.

For now, Schott is developing Sol out of his dorm room, where he has a 3D printer. He lives on-campus in Illinois' Beckwith Residential Community, a residential program that is in cooperation with DRES. This program, the only one of its kind in the world, hosts more than 20 students with physical disabilities who need daily living support.

A major part of the design process, and a goal of Schott and his team, is to continuously improve Sol’s design through feedback.

“We gathered data from a survey that we distributed around the entire world so wheelchair users and other people that use mobility devices could collaborate and give user feedback,” Schott said. “We want to make future versions more universal for different applications such as scooters, walkers and manual wheelchairs — whatever mobility device you name, we want it to fit that." 

By soliciting feedback from as many potential users as possible, Schott and his team were able to ask many more questions about Sol’s functionality and accessibility. For example, the original switch might be difficult for someone with limited dexterity to grip. Could the design have the option to include a palm rest or extended switch handle?

There is clear demand for Sol – the online survey received more than 400 responses in the first week alone. Schott plans to distribute his product to anyone on the Illinois campus who needs one for free. Beyond this, he will sell them through his company, Innovative Independence.

Currently, most assistive technology is distributed through major companies and can be expensive. It can take numerous negotiation attempts before insurance companies cover this technology, and even then, they may not cover everything. To Schott, it is important that all of his products under Innovative Independence be affordable and easy to access. 

Sol’s launch is only the beginning, for both Innovative Independence and the (dis)Ability Design Studio. Carter has many other inventions he hopes to pursue, and McDonagh and Sears are excited about the opportunities that the studio allows: a collaborative space to work, and proximity to many students who are enthusiastic about leading the next chapter of accessibility and empathic design.

“I want this to be the beginning of many, many designed by, not designed for, products,” McDonagh said. “We have a pipeline, we know there’s a thirst among our students to do this, we have the intellectual capital and now we have the space. I think this is just the beginning.”