Free-Will vs Free-Wheel: Understanding Community Accessibility Requirements of Wheelchair Users through Interviews, Participatory Action, and Modeling

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Noyce, Hanna, Olejniczak, Emily, Raychoudhury, Vaskar, Smith, Roger O., Gani, Md Osman
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Noyce, Hanna
Olejniczak, Emily
Raychoudhury, Vaskar
Smith, Roger O.
Gani, Md Osman
author_facet Noyce, Hanna
Olejniczak, Emily
Raychoudhury, Vaskar
Smith, Roger O.
Gani, Md Osman
contents Community participation is an important aspect of an individuals physical and mental well-being. This participation is often limited for persons with disabilities, especially those with ambulatory impairments due to the inability to optimally navigate the community. Accessibility is a multi-faceted problem and varies from person to person. Moreover, it depends on various personal and environmental factors. Despite significant research conducted to understand challenges faced by wheelchair users, developing an accessibility model for wheelchair users by identifying various characteristic features has not been thoroughly studied. In this research, we propose a three-dimensional model of accessibility and validate it through in-depth qualitative analysis involving semi-structured interviews and participatory action research. The outcomes of our studies validated many of our hypotheses about community access for wheelchair users and identified a need for more accessible path planning tools and resources. Overall, this research strengthened our three-dimensional User-Wheelchair-Environment model of accessibility.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_19898
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Free-Will vs Free-Wheel: Understanding Community Accessibility Requirements of Wheelchair Users through Interviews, Participatory Action, and Modeling
Noyce, Hanna
Olejniczak, Emily
Raychoudhury, Vaskar
Smith, Roger O.
Gani, Md Osman
Human-Computer Interaction
Community participation is an important aspect of an individuals physical and mental well-being. This participation is often limited for persons with disabilities, especially those with ambulatory impairments due to the inability to optimally navigate the community. Accessibility is a multi-faceted problem and varies from person to person. Moreover, it depends on various personal and environmental factors. Despite significant research conducted to understand challenges faced by wheelchair users, developing an accessibility model for wheelchair users by identifying various characteristic features has not been thoroughly studied. In this research, we propose a three-dimensional model of accessibility and validate it through in-depth qualitative analysis involving semi-structured interviews and participatory action research. The outcomes of our studies validated many of our hypotheses about community access for wheelchair users and identified a need for more accessible path planning tools and resources. Overall, this research strengthened our three-dimensional User-Wheelchair-Environment model of accessibility.
title Free-Will vs Free-Wheel: Understanding Community Accessibility Requirements of Wheelchair Users through Interviews, Participatory Action, and Modeling
topic Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.19898