Building Inclusive & Accessible Applications for VR

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

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

  1. Is VR inherently inaccessible?
  2. Accessibility & The Law
  3. Tools & Plugins For VR Apps
  4. Accessible Experiments In VR
  5. Take Action

HMI and Device evolution

What do we think when we hear VR

https://www.flickr.com/photos/yelp/28474934237/

How do we interact and play in VR?

Overview of VR controllers

Trend towards spatial hand/gesture motion control

Kinemic Bixi Leap Motion MYO Gest Nod

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

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:

Accessibility = Designing things to provide equal access to people with disabilities

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

“ The power of the web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of their ability is an essential aspect “

Some Types of Disabilities

  • Physical
  • Auditory
  • Visual
  • Psychological
  • Cognitive

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 for disabled gamers will be sold in an innovative, fully accessible piece of packaging

Domino’s Pizza v. Robles, Guillermo

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

Accessibility & The Law

Know Your Abbreviations

  • 504
  • 508
  • ADA
  • WCAG
  • CVAA

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

  • 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

  • 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)

  • 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

  • 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)

  • 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?

  • 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

https://github.com/Chman/ColorBlindr

SeeingVR: Low Vision Tools For VR

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr4Ejq5fHMc

WalkinVR: Steam Driver For VR

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4y_Bb3UZ1I

WalkinVR: Steam Driver For VR

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCLSyhUmQ0M

Accessible Experiments In VR

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

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqeQByqf_f8

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sip-and-puff

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

  • 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 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

  • 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

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!

Roland Dubois rolanddubois.com @rolanddubois #aframe_nyc