Extended Reality’s (XR) range of applications has vastly grown from the inception of the technology in the 1960’s. XR is now being used for education, training, in hospitals, and an array of other things. Even though XR has come a long way, not much has been developed in terms of its accessibility to persons with disabilities.
“I don’t believe Virtual Reality is an accessible platform as it currently exists,” said AJ Ryan, from Able Gamer. “Virtual Reality technology is complicated and therefore makes global accessibility suggestions difficult.”
Malaina VanderWal, who works with the Michigan Council of the Blind and Visually Impaired, who is fully blind, shared a story from a recent trip to Disney World with her family. An employee offered her assistive listening technology, which was integrated into the virtual reality (VR) experience of a ride in the park.
“I had an audio description of everything that my family could see. It added so much more to the ride,” VanderWal said. “Obviously, you could feel the wind, there were certain things you could hear, but by having the description you could almost picture it. My family thought it was the coolest ride we went on, and without the audio description I would have not gotten a lot out of it.”
When asked about augmented reality (AR) wayfinding solutions, Malaina said her concern is that someone who is blind wouldn’t be able to know which direction to hold their phone to begin navigational assistance. Even with audio description embedded in the technology, if the user doesn’t know where to point the device to start, the technology is not useful.
To help fill this gap, Microsoft has created the Canetroller, a cane that can be integrated into VR and used for navigation. The company says they are exploring applications ranging from entertainment to mobility training. Microsoft also published a research tool called SeeingVR for Unity designers to reference when developing low-vision accessibility solutions.
While this is a step in the right direction, these only address visual disabilities, leaving out many other disabilities that need to be considered as part of a holistic approach.
In a study done by disability activist, Alice Wang, participants highlighted the biggest issues in XR technology are overuse of motion tracking, lack of flexibility with other hardware, lack of customization ability, lack of compatibility with assistive technology, lack of visual, audio, and haptic cues and an overall lack of consideration for most kinds of disability needs. The conclusion of the study states: “People with disabilities are assets as consultants and as colleagues/collaborators with the VR industry. This survey is just a small sample of the deep knowledge that people with disabilities have about their bodies, their environments, and the everyday interactions that inform their understanding of the world. It would serve VR developers and companies well if they tapped into this potential market and workforce by investing and reaching out to this population that makes up 1 billion in the world.”
Beyond complex hardware and software development tools currently needed for XR production, fully-abled people face challenges when designing accessible technology without having firsthand input from those with disabilities. The lacking accessibility features typically surface after the product has been developed. Unless this priority changes soon, and more importantly, includes people with disabilities in the development, designing, and testing of the products, the road to a fully accessible XR industry will be long and arduous.
For AR and VR to become truly accessible to persons with disabilities, then those who are experiencing disabilities must be included in the development. In the words of disability activist James Charlton, “Nothing about us without us.”
