Able to Enjoy – FIXED

If you think that the disability experienced on a wheelchair is a limit to a full, fun and colourful life… get ready to change your mind!

Freedom is the concept that led to FIXED, the ultra-light, agile, incredibly innovative and stylish wheelchair, signed by Able to Enjoy.

From medical aid to wearable chair, from limit to possibility. FIXED is the wish that everyone can move freely without limits and barriers, not only architectural!

This is Danilo Ragona‘s thought, a philosophy on which he based his latest creation: FIXED, a customizable wheelchair that combines style and technological excellence, at affordable prices.

The designer from Turin Danilo Ragona in the plants of his own Able to Enjoy (credits Ornella Orlandini, Millionaire)

FIXED is a project created by Able to Enjoy, a company of which Ragona himself is president, with the partnership of Modena Interiors,  Danisi Engineering, that took care of the enineering and production, and Protocube Reply, which was responsible for the new website and 3D customizer, that represents the core of the e-commerce platform.

The image chosen for the communication project of FIXED is simple and essential, to enhance the shapes and colors of the product. An approach, developed in close collaboration with the designer Danilo Ragona, inspired to convey a product of design, rather than a medical-health piece of equipment, as the wheelchair is currently seen in the collective stereotyped view (credits Able to Enjoy)

Danilo Ragona conceived FIXED as a totally customizable wheelchair. In the colours, wheels, accessories and overall in the setup (credits Able to Enjoy)

Designing an online experience, able to incorporate the features of FIXED consistently with Able to Enjoy philosophy, led Protocube Reply through a research project with the aim of identifying the experience of a 3D configurator able to express on the one hand the custom design, which allows the user to create his FIXED, on the other hand, the technology of a product that effectively revolutionizes the field of orthopedic seats. As a metter of fact, FIXED associates a central body made of highly advanced materials, such as aluminum and carbon fiber, with wheels and accessories directly chosen from series production, in order to make the maintenance easier and significantly reduce the product costs.

The wheels of FIXED are the same that we commonly find on the market for 26 and 28 inches bicycles, as well as the knobs and other accessories, for which every configuration option needed to be considered in advance.

FIXED can mount wheels from series bicycles, with the only peculiarity of having an asymmetric hub, instead of the usual symmetrical one of a two-wheeled vehicle. The will of Danilo Ragona to customize the product also from the point of view of performance enables you to mount on your FIXED both road wheels and “fat” wheels, introduced on last generation mountain bikes (credits Able to Enjoy)

FIXED can be configured in the geometry of the wheelchair, other than in its colours and components. Different setups ensure a more comfortable or more sporty usability, accordingly to the user’s character and habits. The customizer allows you to have a realistic feedback of the general setup of your FIXED in all the configurable situations, reassuring the potential buyer about every detail that constitutes his wheelchair (credits Able to Enjoy)

Which tool would have been able to provide the best online customer experience to a complex product such as FIXED?

The choice was soon found in a real time 3D customizer, able to provide the user with the most direct contact level possible with the wheelchair, with the possibility to rotate and zoom in on the object, and to view the product that is updated in real time accordingly to his choices.

The rendering with a high level of realism, made possible by the most advanced real-time 3D rendering technology for the web, provides the potential buyer with an experience able to bridge between the digital time on the web and the actual FIXED, the one that he can order and receive once tuned all the stylistic and technical parameters that best suit his identity.

The 3D customizer interface puts FIXED to the center of experience. The user can rotate and zoom, modify the colours and choose the accessories at any time, without being bound to a rigid sequence. The freedom of action allows a high level of interaction, facilitated by a photorealistic rendering that updates in real time (credits Able to Enjoy)

The detail of the product constitutes a crucial moment in the configuration. The realism of the 3D model and materials is displayed in real time on the web to ensure the highest possible level of interaction between the user and the customizable product (credits Able to Enjoy)

The complexity of FIXED, given by the huge number of variables that together compose it, also made it necessary to guide the users during the early stages of the customization, according to UI-UX criteria that defined the interface design of the 3D customizer. One of the key aspects in the design of a product configurator is, in fact, given by the need to give the user a number of options reasonably manageable and, above all, well-categorized accordingly to the parts that need to be set up.

The initial stages of the configuration process are characterized by a guided experience that allows the user to find a starting setup close to his preferences and habits, without getting lost in thousands of potentially dispersive parameters (credits Able to Enjoy)

The launch of FIXED took place in the exceptional setting of Unicredit Pavillion in Milan, during the fashion show Modelle Rotelle, organized by Fondazione Vertical at the Milan Fashion Week 2016. An occasion which saw the realization of Danilo Ragona’s vision: FIXED as a fashion product, to wear in pairing with clothes designed by fashion designers for the models.

The disabled models don’t only wear clothes designed for them by world-class designers. They also wear FIXED, configured for them by Danilo Ragona in combination with the dress. The images are taken from the fashion show Modelle e Rotelle held on October 3, 2016 at the Unicredit Pavillion in Milan, in the context of the Milan Fashion Week (credits Vertical Foundation)

The 3D customizer created for FIXED is the starting point for the innovative online experience Able to Enjoy. A concrete example of how design, technology and 3D, if supported by a winning philosophy like Danilo Ragona’s one, can go beyond the limits apparently insurmountable, bringing the user beyond the boundaries of disability.

Danilo Ragona has got a huge experience in design and consultancy solutions for disability. His Be Free was in fact officially mentioned by Compasso D’Oro in 2011. Established by ADI (Association for Industrial Design – http://www.adi-design.org) is one of the most important international awards in design. If we want to compare it to other fields, Compasso D’Oro is design

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