Building Inclusive & Accessible Applications for VR @ VRED

A presentation at Building and Using Virtual Reality in Education in October 2019 in New York, NY, USA by Roland Dubois

Building Inclusive & Accessible Applications for VR — Building Inclusive & Accessible Applications for VR
Building Inclusive & Accessible Applications for VR October 16, 2019 @rolanddubois

Hello, I am Roland Dubois — Hello, I am Roland Dubois
Product UX Lead at Virtual Facility
XR Accessibility Lead and co-founder at Virtuleap
Mozilla Tech Speaker
Creator of GRAVR — a globally recognized avatar for VR on the web
Member of the W3C Immersive Web CG
Member of the XR Access Initiative
Host of WebXR (A-Frame NYC) workshops & events
Creating immersive experiments that make the current VR/AR industry accessible for everyone.
@rolanddubois

Collage of community outreach

Agenda — Agenda
Is VR inherently inaccessible?
Accessibility & The Law
Tools & Plugins For VR Apps
Accessible Experiments In VR
Take Action

HMI and Device evolution

What do we think when we hear VR — What do we think when we hear VR
https://www.flickr.com/photos/yelp/28474934237/

How do we interact and play in VR? — How do we interact and play in VR?
Overview of VR controllers

Trend towards spatial hand/gesture motion control — Trend towards spatial hand/gesture motion control
Kinemic Bixi Leap Motion MYO Gest Nod

Hand tracking in current hardware — Hand tracking in current hardware
Hololens 2, Magic Leap, VIVE Hand Tracking SDK, Oculus 2107 - Oculus Hand Tracking OC6

Is VR inherently inaccessible?

What Is Accessibility? #a11y — What Is Accessibility? #a11y
When something is accessible, a person with a disability can (to the greatest extent possible):
acquire the same information,
engage in the same interactions,
and enjoy the same services as a person without a disability,
with substantially equivalent ease of use.

In Other Words: — In Other Words:
Accessibility = Designing things to provide equal access to people with disabilities

Disability Statistics From the CDC — Disability Statistics From the CDC
The World Health Organization reports that there are 1 billion people in the world experiencing some form of disability

61 million adults in the United States live with a disability

Tim Berners-Lee, Creator of the World Wide Web and director of the W3C — Tim Berners-Lee, Creator of the World Wide Web and director of the W3C
“ The power of the web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of their ability is an essential aspect “

Some Types of Disabilities — Some Types of Disabilities
Physical
Auditory
Visual
Psychological
Cognitive

Keep In Mind — Keep In Mind
Some disabilities may be more visible than others
It is always the individual’s choice to disclose
It is not our responsibility to diagnose people
It is our responsibility to provide accessible software
Focus on Universal Design

Microsoft's new accessible controller — Microsoft's new accessible controller
Microsoft’s new accessible controller for disabled gamers will be sold in an innovative, fully accessible piece of packaging

Domino’s Pizza v. Robles, Guillermo — Domino’s Pizza v. Robles, Guillermo
Robles v. Domino’s Pizza, LLC, No. 17-55504 (9th Cir. 2019)

Accessibility & The Law

Know Your Abbreviations — Know Your Abbreviations
504
508
ADA
WCAG
CVAA

Rehabilitation Act of 1973 — Rehabilitation Act of 1973
Contains Section 504 & Section 508
1st major US legislation to provide protection for people with disabilities
Ties federal funding to compliance

Section 504 — Section 504
Prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability by recipients of Federal financial assistance
Applies to higher education institutions, public libraries, airports, any organization that receives federal support of any kind, even if the organization is not a federal or state organization.

Section 508 — Section 508
Electronic & information technology must be accessible Added in 1986, updated in 1998 & 2017
Applies specifically to federal agencies, but it also impacts any company that does business with a federal agency. This includes private contractors, the financial industry, healthcare, many legal organizations, and others.
Updated 508 rules (2018), the law now “incorporates, by reference” WCAG 2.0 Level AA. (Dominos v. Robles) Accessibility & The Law: Know Your Abbreviations

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) — Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
Passed in 1990 and amended in 2008
Prohibits discrimination based on disability in all areas of public life
Requires equal opportunity to participate in programs, services, and activities

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines — Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
Also known as WCAG
Internationally recognized industry standards
Laws use them as a compliance benchmark
Web and mobile apps may use WCAG version 2.1
Technical Implementation
Details Testable Compliance Criteria
Related to the “how” of web accessibility

21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA) — 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA)
Structured as a telecommunications law
Focus is on to access the content, rather than the medium
Title I, covers Communication Access
Title II, covers Video Programming
Enforced by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)

Developing semantically structured apps solves more than 50% of the most common accessibility issues

How Is Compliance Enforced? — How Is Compliance Enforced?
Oﬃce for Civil Rights (OCR)
Department of Justice (DOJ)
Private lawsuits
Internal institutional oversight
Consequences To Many Companies?
Monetary penalties
Loss of business opportunities
Continued systemic barriers

Accessibility Tools & Plugins For VR Apps

ColorBlindr Unity Plugin — ColorBlindr Unity Plugin
https://github.com/Chman/ColorBlindr

SeeingVR: Low Vision Tools For VR — SeeingVR: Low Vision Tools For VR
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr4Ejq5fHMc

WalkinVR: Steam Driver For VR — WalkinVR: Steam Driver For VR
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4y_Bb3UZ1I

WalkinVR: Steam Driver For VR — WalkinVR: Steam Driver For VR
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCLSyhUmQ0M

Accessible Experiments In VR

Online Survey: People with Disabilities & VR Accessibility — Online Survey: People with Disabilities & VR Accessibility
https://disabilityvisibilityproject.com/2017/01/03/vr/

BBC VR subtitle research & ImAc Prototypes

Enabling People with Visual Impairments to Navigate Virtual Reality with a Haptic and Auditory Cane Simulation — Enabling People with Visual Impairments to Navigate Virtual Reality with a Haptic and Auditory Cane Simulation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1jHXxUBJ8o https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/uploads/prod/2018/01/canetroller.pdf

Seeing AI app from Microsoft — Seeing AI app from Microsoft
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqeQByqf_f8

Navigating virtual environments for the visually impaired with spatial audio. — Navigating virtual environments for the visually impaired with spatial audio.
https://github.com/rdub80/gravr-a11y-demo

DOT NY Prototype (POC) of a NYC street crossing with acoustic navigation training for people who are blind or visually impaired.

DOT NY Prototype (POC) of a NYC street crossing with acoustic navigation training for people who are blind or visually impaired.

Intersection Example - Desktop Playback

From Sip-and-Puff To Binary — From Sip-and-Puff To Binary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sip-and-puff

Accessible Locomotion and Interaction in WebXR — Accessible Locomotion and Interaction in WebXR
https://blog.prototypr.io/accessible-locomotion-and-interaction-in-webxr-e4d87c512e51 https://devpost.com/software/accessiblelocomotionwebxr

Take Action

Action Plan — Action Plan
Learn accessibility best practices (Evaluate Your App)
Apply best practices to new content you create
Update existing content to make it accessible, starting with the most important items

Accessibility Statement — Accessibility Statement
Accessibility statements and resource publishing best practices csun 2019 (https://www.slideshare.net/7mary4/accessibility-statements-and-resource-publishing-best-practices-csun-2019)
How to write the accessibility statement (https://www.nomensa.com/blog/2009/writing-an-accessibility-statement)
[App Name] is committed to providing an application that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of technology or ability. We are actively working to increase the accessibility and usability of our application and in doing so adhere to many of the available standards and guidelines. Please contact accessibility@email.com for any questions and suggestions to improve our app.

Considerations — Considerations
Progressive enhancement: 2D > 3D > VR
Look into HMI & Ergonomics rather than flat device GUIs
Learn how Assistive Technologies are solving interaction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMcLQoMR78w, Measure of Man and Woman: Human Factors in Design by Henry Dreyfuss, https://www.newsweek.com/double-amputee-gets-first-ever-mind-controlled-arms-293189

Engage and Interact — Engage and Interact
Meetups
A11yNYC - Accessibility New York City (https://www.meetup.com/A11yNYC)
CUNY Tech Meetup (https://www.meetup.com/CUNY-Tech-Meetup)
Events
Access + Ability Build-a-Thon (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSff-oItM2bOAem0MyiVRfPUMo-0Nc3b4hrkrUACxBEHpEz4GA/viewform)
Links & Resources
5 VR Games with A11y Features (https://www.keengamer.com/article/20813_5-vr-games-considerate-of-people-with-disabilities)
Why VR/AR Developers Should Prioritize A11y in UX/UI Design (https://aixr.org/insights/why-vr-ar-developers-should-prioritize-accessibility-in-ux-ui-design/)
XRAccess (https://www.xraccess.org/resources)
Ablegamers.org (https://ablegamers.org)
The Geeky Gimp (https://geekygimp.com/accessing-vr-dont-leave-disabled-people-behind/)

Thank You! — Thank You!
Roland Dubois rolanddubois.com @rolanddubois #aframe_nyc

Roland Dubois
@rolanddubois

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This presentation is reflecting on the question “Is VR inherently inaccessible?”, is giving an overview of what accessibility means and why we should consider integrating WCAG standards into our product design and development pipeline for educational VR applications. It provides a brief glance at ADA guidelines, laws for software and the web, experiments, and projects, and some practical tips and tools to get started.

Resources

The following resources were mentioned during the presentation or are useful additional information.