Accessible by Design: An Opportunity for Virtual Reality

Too often, the accessibility of technology to people with disabilities is an afterthought (if it is considered at all); post-hoc or third-party patches to accessibility, while better than no solution, are less optimal than interface designs that consider ability-based concerns from the start [31]. Virtual Reality (VR) technologies are at a crucial point of near-maturity, with emerging, but not yet widespread, commercialization; as such, VR technologies have an opportunity to integrate accessibility as a fundamental, developing cross-industry standards and guidelines to ensure high-quality, inclusive experiences that could revolutionize the power and reach of this medium. In this position paper, we discuss the needs, opportunities, and challenges of creating accessible VR.

[1]  Holger Regenbrecht,et al.  Manipulating the Experience of Reality for Rehabilitation Applications , 2014, Proceedings of the IEEE.

[2]  Simeon Keates,et al.  Developing steady clicks:: a method of cursor assistance for people with motor impairments , 2006, Assets '06.

[3]  Kori Inkpen Quinn,et al.  Me and my avatar: exploring users' comfort with avatars for workplace communication , 2011, CSCW '11.

[4]  Meredith Ringel Morris,et al.  SeeingVR: A Set of Tools to Make Virtual Reality More Accessible to People with Low Vision , 2019, CHI.

[5]  Simeon Keates,et al.  Effect of age and Parkinson's disease on cursor positioning using a mouse , 2005, Assets '05.

[6]  Maria V. Sanchez-Vives,et al.  Extending Body Space in Immersive Virtual Reality: A Very Long Arm Illusion , 2012, PloS one.

[7]  Meredith Ringel Morris,et al.  Use Cases and Impact of Audio-Based Virtual Exploration , 2020 .

[8]  Susumu Harada,et al.  The angle mouse: target-agnostic dynamic gain adjustment based on angular deviation , 2009, CHI.

[9]  Antoni Rodríguez-Fornells,et al.  Violating body movement semantics: Neural signatures of self-generated and external-generated errors , 2016, NeuroImage.

[10]  Joan López-Moliner,et al.  The Effects of Visuomotor Calibration to the Perceived Space and Body, through Embodiment in Immersive Virtual Reality , 2015, TAP.

[11]  M. Hallett,et al.  Virtual Reality–Induced Cortical Reorganization and Associated Locomotor Recovery in Chronic Stroke: An Experimenter-Blind Randomized Study , 2005, Stroke.

[12]  Kori Inkpen Quinn,et al.  TeleTourist: Immersive Telepresence Tourism for Mobility-Restricted Participants , 2016, CSCW Companion.

[13]  Ming-Hui Wen,et al.  Body and mind: a study of avatar personalization in three virtual worlds , 2009, CHI.

[14]  Kyle Rector,et al.  Virtual Showdown: An Accessible Virtual Reality Game with Scaffolds for Youth with Visual Impairments , 2019, CHI.

[15]  Patrick Carrington,et al.  Wearables and chairables: inclusive design of mobile input and output techniques for power wheelchair users , 2014, CHI.

[16]  Yuhang Zhao,et al.  How People with Low Vision Access Computing Devices: Understanding Challenges and Opportunities , 2016, ASSETS.

[17]  V. Ramachandran,et al.  Synaesthesia in phantom limbs induced with mirrors , 1996, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences.

[18]  John A. King,et al.  Embodying Compassion: A Virtual Reality Paradigm for Overcoming Excessive Self-Criticism , 2014, PloS one.

[19]  Mar González-Franco,et al.  Empowering patients to perform physical therapy at home , 2014, 2014 36th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society.

[20]  Sean Follmer,et al.  An Accessible CAD Workflow Using Programming of 3D Models and Preview Rendering in A 2.5D Shape Display , 2018, ASSETS.

[21]  Mar Gonzalez-Franco,et al.  The Neurological Traces of Look-Alike Avatars , 2016, Front. Hum. Neurosci..

[22]  Ivan Poupyrev,et al.  The go-go interaction technique: non-linear mapping for direct manipulation in VR , 1996, UIST '96.

[23]  Doug A. Bowman,et al.  An evaluation of techniques for grabbing and manipulating remote objects in immersive virtual environments , 1997, SI3D.

[24]  Géry Casiez,et al.  RayCursor: A 3D Pointing Facilitation Technique based on Raycasting , 2019, CHI.

[25]  Ravin Balakrishnan,et al.  "Beating" Fitts' law: virtual enhancements for pointing facilitation , 2004, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud..

[26]  Jenny Waycott,et al.  Designing the Lost Self: Older Adults' Self-representations in Online Games , 2018, Conference on Designing Interactive Systems.

[27]  Meredith Ringel Morris,et al.  Enabling People with Visual Impairments to Navigate Virtual Reality with a Haptic and Auditory Cane Simulation , 2018, CHI.

[28]  Mel Slater,et al.  Conversations between self and self as Sigmund Freud—A virtual body ownership paradigm for self counselling , 2015, Scientific Reports.