VRARE: Using Virtual Reality to Understand Accessibility Requirements of Color Blindness and Weakness
Yi Wang, Ben Cheng, Xiao Liu, Chetan Arora, John Grundy, Thuong Hoang
TL;DR
This paper addresses how to understand and elicit accessibility requirements for color vision deficiencies by developing VRARE, a VR system that simulates color blindness within a virtual environment and extends to web content. It compares VR-based discussions to traditional methods in a within-subject pilot with 24 participants, showing that VR reduces workload and improves user experience. The study demonstrates VR's potential to enhance requirements engineering activities for accessibility and remote collaboration, while outlining future work on gamification and broader evaluation of VR-driven requirement capture.
Abstract
In this paper, we developed a virtual reality (VR) system that can simulate color blindness and weakness. We built an immersive 3D web view interface where participants can discuss accessibility requirements for a fitness website projects within a virtual fitness environment. We conducted a pilot experiment involving 24 participants from six software teams, who used both VR and non-VR methods to understand color blindness and weakness requirements in a website project. Our findings indicate that using VR can provide several benefits for requirements activities, such as an improved user experience and reduced workload.