Augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) hold significant potential to transform how we work, learn, and engage with others. However, there has been a lack of work exploring the challenges associated with these technologies for disabled people. In particular, it is unclear the extent to which significant future uptake of this technology across the wider population could have a negative impact and further exacerbate the digital divide.
As such, there is an urgent need to understand the potential of these technologies to both support disabled people, but also to investigate the wider implications around the proliferation of AR and VR.
To address the limited work in this area, the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) Research Group were awarded a grant from Meta Reality Labs to investigate both the barriers that disabled people currently experience with AR and VR (across a spectrum of visual, physical, auditory, and cognitive impairments), as well as the opportunities these innovative technologies present to support wider societal inclusion. The outcomes of this work were recently published in two leading journals, capturing the access barriers disabled people experience (Inclusive AR/VR: Accessibility Barriers for Immersive Technologies) and a research agenda for the field (Inclusive Augmented and Virtual Reality: A Research Agenda).
This work is now informing multiple ongoing research projects across the HCI Research Group investigating novel technological solutions to support more inclusive immersive experiences for disabled people.
Project Impacts:
- A comprehensive mapping of access barriers that disabled people experience (across a range of impairments) when using immersive technologies.
- The development of a research agenda for industry, academia, and other stakeholders to accelerate activity towards producing more inclusive AR/VR experiences.
- The development of innovative solutions to address current accessibility issues to support the design of more accessible immersive systems for disabled people.
Funder:
A research grant from Meta Reality Labs
Contact:
For more information on the project, contact Chris Creed chris.creed@bcu.ac.uk