Not Just Pockets: Understanding Phone-Carrying Behaviors of Wheelchair Users for Mobile Context-Awareness

2026-07-15

AI Summary

This study addresses a critical gap in mobile context-aware systems, which typically assume users carry smartphones in their pockets—a premise that fails to accommodate wheelchair users whose phone-carrying behaviors are significantly shaped by physical abilities, wheelchair design, and daily contexts, yet remain underexplored. Through 91 surveys and 15 in-depth interviews, this work presents the first empirical investigation revealing the diverse smartphone-carrying practices among wheelchair users, thereby challenging the conventional “pocket” assumption. The research proposes treating carrying location as a key contextual proxy variable and advocates for a more inclusive paradigm in context-aware computing. These findings provide empirical grounding and practical guidance for designing high-accuracy, accessible mobile applications tailored to the needs of wheelchair users.

Abstract

Smartphone-based context-awareness holds significant promise for wheelchair users -- from detecting everyday accessibility barriers to enabling ability-based adaptations. Such capabilities often build on passive context inference through mobile sensing, yet their accuracy hinges on how and where phones are carried and the resulting signal quality. While prior work documents phone-carrying behaviors in the general population, patterns specific to wheelchair users remain underexplored. Through a mixed-methods approach combining a survey of 91 and interviews with 15 wheelchair users, we systematically investigate their phone-carrying locations and influencing factors. Our findings reveal distinct patterns extending beyond pocket storage to diverse wheelchair-mounted accessories and around-body placements, shaped by the interplay of physical ability, wheelchair design, and everyday contexts, including social, activity, and device factors. Grounded in these findings, we articulate how carrying location can serve as a proxy for user context to enable novel context-aware experiences, and discuss design implications for developing inclusive and effective mobile context-aware applications.

Problem

• wheelchair users
• phone-carrying behaviors
• mobile context-awareness
• context inference
• accessibility

Innovation

• wheelchair users
• phone-carrying behavior
• mobile context-awareness
• inclusive design
• context inference