Abstract
A lack of accessible controls remains a barrier to disabled users engaging in virtual reality experiences. This paper presents a modified cognitive walkthrough of 120 virtual reality applications to identify 2,284 pairs of operant and resultant actions and creates an inventory of domain objects and their operant and resultant actions in the virtual space. This inventory captures both the form and prevalence of interactions that are expected of users in current virtual reality design. An analysis of this inventory reveals that while many barriers could be addressed by existing solutions, those options currently are not often present in current designs. Further, there are a set of barriers related to embodied controls that represent opportunities and challenges for new and innovative designs in virtual reality.
We acknowledge the support of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), grant RGPIN-2020-05570.
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Notes
- 1.
In this paper we have chosen identity first language over people first language which is consistent with some communities. We acknowledge that language around disability is evolving and have made this choice for consistency within the paper.
- 2.
For those familiar with hierarchical task analysis, these atomic tasks correspond to the leaves of the task tree.
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Power, C., Cairns, P., DeHaven, T. (2023). Mapping Virtual Reality Controls to Inform Design of Accessible User Experiences. In: Abdelnour Nocera, J., Kristín Lárusdóttir, M., Petrie, H., Piccinno, A., Winckler, M. (eds) Human-Computer Interaction – INTERACT 2023. INTERACT 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14142. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-42280-5_5
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