Developing Experience-Centric Accessible Immersive Virtual Reality Technology

ongoing

AccessVR will fill the gap in the scientific knowledge on how people with physical disability – particularly people with limited upper- and lower body mobility – access and experience Virtual Reality (VR) technology. Many of the several million physically disabled people in the EU cannot tap into the huge potential of the technology for leisure, education, and work: VR systems are commonly designed for non-disabled human bodies, but as a result of the complexity of VR technology, fundamental accessibility barriers for physically disabled users remain unaddressed. AccessVR addresses this issue through development of an experience-centric framework for accessible VR technology. The framework will build on technology case studies and a modular VR application that address physical and digital access barriers to VR, and will be constructed against disability studies as theoretical backdrop. The first phase of the research will examine preferences and needs of disabled people regarding user interfaces and representation of disability in VR through co-creation of individually tailored VR prototypes. In a second phase, the project will synthesize outcomes into a middleware layer, and develop an adaptive VR platform featuring entertainment and workplace scenarios. In the third phase, the VR platform will be leveraged to evaluate the experience of physically disabled people in VR to refine the framework based on empirical data. The goal of AccessVR is to further our understanding of how to create engaging VR experiences for people with physical disability that combine the removal of physical, digital, and experiential access barriers. Results are expected to have significant impact on the design of body-centric technology and the inclusion of physically disabled people. Ultimately, AccessVR will enable future research on disability and VR, contribute to the accessible design of the technology, and lay the foundation for more inclusive technological futures.