Logo
ScienceStack
Table of Contents
Fetching ...
Sign In

An Equitable Experience? How HCI Research Conceptualizes Accessibility of Virtual Reality in the Context of Disability

Kathrin Gerling, Anna-Lena Meiners, Louisa Schumm, Jan Rixen, Marvin Wolf, Zeynep Yildiz, Dmitry Alexandrovsky, Merlin Opp

TL;DR

A working definition of VR accessibility is contributed that considers experience a necessary condition for equitable access, and the need for future work to focus on experience in the same way as VR research addressing non-disabled persons does is discussed.

Abstract

Creating accessible Virtual Reality (VR) is an ongoing concern in the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research community. However, there is little reflection on how accessibility should be conceptualized in the context of an experiential technology. We address this gap in our work: We first explore how accessibility is currently defined, highlighting a growing recognition of the importance of equitable and enriching experiences. We then carry out a literature study (N=28) to examine how accessibility and its relationship with experience is currently conceptualized in VR research. Our results show that existing work seldom defines accessibility in the context of VR, and that barrier-centric research is prevalent. Likewise, we show that experience - e.g., that of presence or immersion - is rarely designed for or evaluated, while participant feedback suggests that it is relevant for disabled users of VR. On this basis, we contribute a working definition of VR accessibility that considers experience a necessary condition for equitable access, and discuss the need for future work to focus on experience in the same way as VR research addressing non-disabled persons does.

An Equitable Experience? How HCI Research Conceptualizes Accessibility of Virtual Reality in the Context of Disability

TL;DR

A working definition of VR accessibility is contributed that considers experience a necessary condition for equitable access, and the need for future work to focus on experience in the same way as VR research addressing non-disabled persons does is discussed.

Abstract

Creating accessible Virtual Reality (VR) is an ongoing concern in the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research community. However, there is little reflection on how accessibility should be conceptualized in the context of an experiential technology. We address this gap in our work: We first explore how accessibility is currently defined, highlighting a growing recognition of the importance of equitable and enriching experiences. We then carry out a literature study (N=28) to examine how accessibility and its relationship with experience is currently conceptualized in VR research. Our results show that existing work seldom defines accessibility in the context of VR, and that barrier-centric research is prevalent. Likewise, we show that experience - e.g., that of presence or immersion - is rarely designed for or evaluated, while participant feedback suggests that it is relevant for disabled users of VR. On this basis, we contribute a working definition of VR accessibility that considers experience a necessary condition for equitable access, and discuss the need for future work to focus on experience in the same way as VR research addressing non-disabled persons does.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 46 sections, 3 figures, 2 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Background
  3. Defining Accessibility: Societal, Legal, and Research Perspectives
  4. Societal Perspectives on Accessibility
  5. Legal Perspectives on Accessibility
  6. Perspectives on Accessibility Within HCI Research
  7. Understanding VR as an Experiential Technology
  8. The Vision Behind Virtual Reality
  9. The Pillars of Experience in VR
  10. A Working Definition of Accessibility in the Context of Virtual Reality
  11. Literature Study: How does the HCI and accessibility research community approach VR accessibility?
  12. Corpus Construction
  13. Identification of Relevant Records
  14. Screening, Eligibility, and Included Items
  15. Data Analysis
  16. ...and 31 more sections

Figures (3)

  • Figure 1: Overview of the PRISMA page2021 record selection process that we applied.
  • Figure 2: Histogram depicting the publication years for all publications in the corpus.
  • Figure 3: Characterizing the corpus regarding contribution types, target audiences, research topics, and research methodology. In some cases, papers were assigned to multiple categories (e.g., making an artifact and an empirical contribution).