Erin Higgins, Anand Mhatre, Sam Waters, Jon Pearlman
There is an issue being faced by wheelchair users all over the world in which the number of wheelchairs needed far outweighs the number provided. Less-resourced countries are facing a crisis that needs to have attention brought to it. For example, based on current estimates, in China over 13.5 Million wheelchairs are needed and less than 400,000 have been distributed.
Recognizing this need, Wheelchair Nation was created to help combat this problem. The product list will be used by people all over the world to gain more knowledge about which products are available in their area and which of these suit their needs. There is a growing demand for a list in a similar style to amazon.com to insure that users can compare products and make a much more informed decision.
The process began with creating a basic theme for the layout of the website. Once the basics of the website were established, we started to add other features that we hope will prove to be very useful. Comments were added so that users could inform other people interested in the product how they felt or manufacturers that there is something wrong. Another thing that was added was a testing section. This area of the site allows manufacturers to provide testing reports to convey the validity and reliability of the product. The website is also available in 46 languages which we hope will help the list to be useful to people all over the world.
We hope that the site will have several impacts on wheelchair users and manufacturers. It could help to inform manufacturers about issues with their products, it can be used for research about different countries and how wheelchairs are effected by environments, it serves as a place where testing reports and standards are important and may help to make universal standards, and most importantly it can be used to fit people with the best possible chair and give them a better quality of life.
Product website: http://iswpcatalogjrtrcziokw.devcloud.acquia-sites.com/