아무도 요청하지 않은 '게 의자'

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About United Spinal Resource Center Peer Support Advocacy Join Today United Spinal Association is dedicated to empowering wheelchair users and others with SCI/D. Learn More Magazine Archive Follow Us On Social Facebook Instagram Twitter Youtube Pinterest Linkedin Newsletter New Mobility’s newsletter delivers product news and pro tips from wheelchair users twice a month. Subscribe Search for: Search Sign In Menu Share Products & Technology Nobody Asked for a Crab Chair September 21, 2026 Ian Ruder Share In our last installment of “Good Intentions Gone Wrong: When Disability Engineers Go Bad,” we highlighted a particularly egregious Swiss wheelchair design featuring superfluous drones . Thankfully, not all engineers who receive blank checks to design disability solutions are that out of touch. More commonly, the lack of constraints that comes with deep corporate pockets results in sexy, future-forward designs with tantalizing possibilities that somehow leave me feeling more empty than excited. Toyota’s new-ish “Walk me” prototype could be the poster chair for what I’m talking about. The “Walk me” replaces wheels with four articulating legs that bend and move independently. Picture a four-legged crab with light-up legs carefully balancing an uncomfortable-looking seat. Using LiDAR, collision radars, and internal weight sensors, the crabchair can transport its user over uneven terrain or up and down stairs. With an aesthetically-pleasing pastel color palette and a chic, future-minimalist vibe, it’s easy to see why the crabchair was a hit when Toyota unveiled it last fall at the Japan Mobility Show. Let’s be clear: if I could have a free crabchair tomorrow, I’d be out the door, in the line to pick up my new robot legs before I knew where to go. But these kinds of prototypes are built to inspire and show what is possible, not to be mass produced for actual users. In short, don’t get your hopes up you’ll ever see a crabchair clawing its way down the street. They’re over-designed, cost prohibitive and generally out of touch with the realities facing most would-be users. They’re engineering inspiration porn. They make headlines (yes, I’m guilty), and make people feel like they’re helping an underserved community and making the world a better place. Unfortunately, they very rarely translate into real world benefits for people like us. That alone would be disappointing, but probably closer to a “no harm, no foul” situation: rich people and companies building expensive toys and patting themselves on the back. It has been going on forever and likely will into the future. My concern, and the thing that saps any enthusiasm the sleek design might inspire in me, is that much like more traditional inspiration porn harms the disabled community by propagating false narratives and not doing justice to real experiences of disabled people, this engineering version of inspiration porn neglects to address the design problems most critical to our community while pulling away obviously-talented designers and chair-loads of cash that could have been focused on solving them. I would give at least a few of my quad fingers for a high quality, lightweight, low-profile indoor/outdoor power chair with the customizable seating and back options I rely on. Same for a stable shower chair that could safely navigate step-in showers. I’m not talking about reinventing the wheel(chair), but tweaking and refining the designs we have to optimize independence and function for users. Like I wrote in the previous article in this series, there are brilliant designers working on these and other similar issues but we need more! More minds, more money, more eyeballs focused on improving what we have and doing so in affordable ways. I genuinely appreciate the designers behind the “Walk me” (even if I wholeheartedly question whomever decided the name should sound like wheelchair users are the crabchair’s pets). I hope their experience designing the crabchair got them excited about disability-related design and that they continue to pursue it. All I ask is that instead of sitting in their corporate labs, bouncing ideas off each other, they get out into the real world. They should dedicate themselves to engaging and listening to the disability community about what problems need solving and what does and doesn’t work. We know. We get it. Lord knows we don’t need any more designs like this … Support New Mobility Wait! 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Disagree Agree Notify of new follow-up comments new replies to my comments Label Name* Email* Website Δ I give permission to connect via Facebook When you log in for the first time using the Facebook login button, Facebook shares your public profile information, based on your privacy settings. Once your account is created, you'll be logged in to this account. Disagree Agree Label Name* Email* Website Δ 2 Comments Oldest Newest Most Voted Kelly Ferguson 2 days ago Hi Ian, As someone who designs adaptive devices, this kind of thing drives me crazy. I refer to it as "Design Tunnel Vision:" they start with a final concept already in mind and focus solely on that, without taking into account functionality, cost, or the end user. As it turns out, I'm currently working on a w/c prototype which will hopefully avoid those pitfalls. Also, the walk-in shower chair idea sounds intriguing: there are numerous reasons that a roll-in shower is infeasible and that could be a much cheaper option. 0 Reply H GERLACH JAMES III MD 2 days ago Totally agree that something that solves a daily problem would be a better use of resources. The step in shower is a perfect example, beds, and pool and beach devices are others. But you won’t see those on tv 0 Reply Become A Member Wheelchair users: Join United Spinal and get priority assistance from our expert Resource Center staff. Join Now Newsletters Stay Informed! Sign up to receive our newsletters. We're committed to your privacy. New Mobility uses the information you provide to