GDC 2018 Expectations 2: Thoughts on Accessibility
This specific article was inspired by my recent participation in the panel at UC Berkeley. We discussed how XR will augment our society. One of the topics was about accessibility and inclusion and I’d love to share some ideas and concerns here with you.
Article by Olga Ivanova, contact via olga@ol-iva.com
Accessibility for XR includes so many aspects. How to make it usable, delightful and comfortable for all? There is a sessin at GDC that covers this topic which I am definitely attending: Accessibility in VR: How It Can Be Better. As it promises “Attendees will begin to start understanding the various impairments that can make it more difficult for people to play VR as well as some key design considerations to help make their own VR experiences more accessible”.
Before the session, let’s brainstorm and think which issues may be avoided:
Is an experience accessible for people with hearing impairment, can people with limited motoric impairments easily play a game, what is sensor-motor impairments are present? How about standing or seating only experience, is it accessible for everyone? Is it good for people with certain phobias? What about partially paralized or bedrid people which actually could be a real target audience for certain cases in VR or AR? Or using voice commands for people with limited speaking abilities? How easy is it to proceed or set up a game, experience, or device? Is it possible to communicate with real reality when you are in VR, or at least is it possible to get notified about anything from the outside world while in VR?
There are definitely other types of issues which are related to hardware, such as price, ease of use (light and comfortable for different types of body? Even if just think about adults), untethered or wired, requires an expensive GPU or is standalone, how accessible it is if players wear glasses. So many questions arise.
One more issue is bandwidth and internet for certain apps, especially multiplayers, hopefully it will be solved as well soon.
Another question— is it easy to buy anywhere in the world?
And getting back to the topic of VR UX and VR UI — wouldn’t it be great to have a UI and the whole user experience that could be convertible for any of the needs? Let’s think about it. Let’s meet at GDC if you are interested to discuss! Find me, please.
Please, contact via olga@ol-iva.com or Facebook Messenger
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