Designing Accessible VR

Original article: Designing Accessible VR

TL;DR

The transcript emphasizes the need for designing accessible VR experiences by focusing on user variability, spatialized audio, Voice User Interfaces (VUIs), and low vision simulations. It recommends strategies to manage cognitive overload and motion sickness, such as simplifying user interfaces and optimizing locomotion methods. It further underscores the importance of customizing captions and subtitles, including font, location, speed, and color, to enhance reading in VR.

Bullet points

🌐 User Variability in VR: Every individual has a unique set of abilities, comfort levels, and preferences. This variability, encompassing factors like physical abilities, cognitive abilities, sensory abilities, and prior experiences, needs to be considered when designing VR experiences. Accommodating this variability can lead to more inclusive and comfortable VR experiences.
👥 User Research in VR Design: User research is a process of understanding users’ behaviors, needs, and motivations through observation techniques, task analysis, and other feedback methodologies. By gathering user data, designers can make evidence-based decisions, creating VR experiences that meet user needs and expectations, thereby enhancing user engagement.
🎮 UI Design in VR: User Interface (UI) in VR should be designed such that it’s easy to understand and navigate. This includes making text easily readable, ensuring the buttons are of an appropriate size and adequately spaced, and providing customization options. This helps in accommodating the varying preferences and needs of individual users, enhancing their VR experience.
💡 Cognitive Load in VR: Cognitive load refers to the total amount of mental effort being used in a user’s working memory. If a VR experience is too complex or unintuitive, it can exceed the user’s cognitive load, leading to feelings of discomfort, confusion, and loss of immersion. Designing experiences that are within a user’s cognitive abilities can greatly enhance their VR experience.
🎧 Spatialized Audio in VR: Spatial audio is sound that exists in three dimensions. It is used in VR to enhance immersion, help users orient themselves in the virtual space, and understand their environment. It can help users locate virtual objects based on the direction and distance from which the sound is coming, providing a more realistic and engaging experience.
🖌️ Visual Accessibility in VR: Ensuring that visuals are clear and contrastive is crucial for making VR experiences accessible. For people with color blindness, designers should consider offering alternate color schemes or color identification tools. This can help ensure that all users, regardless of their visual abilities, can fully experience and interact with the VR environment.
👁️ Low Vision Simulations: Simulating low vision conditions allows designers to experience what visually impaired users might see in a VR environment. This experience can drive empathy and understanding, helping designers to make necessary enhancements to their designs and create more inclusive and accessible VR experiences.
🎙️ Voice User Interface (VUI): Incorporating voice commands in VR can greatly improve accessibility. For users with physical or cognitive limitations that make traditional controls challenging, voice commands provide an alternative means of navigation and interaction. This makes VR experiences more inclusive and accessible to a wider audience.
📘 Reading in VR: Text in VR should be legible and comfortable to read. This includes considering factors such as the choice of font, the size of the font, and the placement of the text. By making text easier to read, designers can improve user comfort and engagement, making VR experiences more enjoyable and inclusive.
🏃‍♂️ Motion Sickness in VR: VR experiences can sometimes cause motion sickness in users, due to the disconnect between the perceived movement in the virtual world and the physical stillness of the real world. Strategies to mitigate this include incorporating gradual acceleration and deceleration, providing a static frame of reference, or allowing teleportation for movement in the VR environment.
📖 Captions and Subtitles in VR: Captions (text appearing in the same language as the spoken dialogue) and subtitles (text translated into a different language) can greatly enhance the accessibility of VR experiences. They cater to a wide range of users, from those with hearing loss or cognitive disabilities, to those who speak different languages, to even those who simply prefer to read dialogue.
🎨 Font Customization in VR: Allowing users to select from a variety of fonts can make the text more readable for a wider range of users. Fonts such as OpenDyslexic, Arial, and Comic Sans are considered easier to read for people with dyslexia. Giving users the ability to choose their preferred font enhances accessibility and user comfort.
📏 Caption and Subtitle Placement in VR: The placement of captions and subtitles in the VR space can significantly affect user comfort and understanding. Allowing users to customize the placement of captions and subtitles can enhance their VR experience, making it more comfortable and engaging.
⏱️ Caption and Subtitle Speed in VR: Ensuring that captions and subtitles are displayed at a pace that matches the spoken dialogue can help ensure that users who rely on captions have a similar experience to those who don’t. Presenting complete sentences as they’re spoken can make the experience more immersive and inclusive for users who rely on captions or subtitles.
🚦 Visual Indicators in VR: In addition to captions and subtitles, using visual cues such as arrows or onomatopoeia can help users understand the narrative and navigate the VR space. These cues can direct users towards the source of a sound, a speaking character, or a next game event, making the VR experience more immersive and navigable.

Keywords

User Variability: The diversity of user abilities, comfort levels, and preferences. This should be taken into account when designing VR experiences for inclusivity and comfort.
User Research: A process used to understand user behaviors, needs, and motivations through various observation techniques and feedback methodologies.
Cognitive Load: The total amount of mental effort being used in a user’s working memory. Exceeding the cognitive load can lead to discomfort and confusion.
Spatialized Audio: Sound that exists in three dimensions, used in VR to enhance immersion and help users orient themselves in the virtual space.
Visual Accessibility: The degree to which a product allows users with varying visual abilities to consume and interact with its content.
Low Vision Simulations: Tools used by designers to simulate what visually impaired users might experience, driving empathy and leading to improved design decisions.
Voice User Interface (VUI): A system that enables users to interact with a digital product or service using voice commands.
Reading in VR: Refers to the legibility and comfort level of reading text in VR, influenced by factors such as font choice, size, and placement.
Motion Sickness: A common issue in VR where users feel nauseous due to a disconnect between perceived movement in the virtual world and the physical stillness of the real world.
Captions and Subtitles: Text that appears onscreen during a video to provide written versions of spoken dialogue or translations in different languages.
Font Customization: Allowing users to choose from a range of fonts for on-screen text to improve readability and accessibility.
Caption/Subtitle Placement: The spatial location of captions and subtitles in VR, which can be adjusted to enhance user comfort and understanding.
Caption/Subtitle Speed: The pace at which captions or subtitles are displayed, ideally matching the speed of spoken dialogue.
Visual Indicators: Visual cues or signals used to guide users in VR, enhancing their understanding and navigation of the virtual environment.