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Building Inclusive & Accessible Applications for VR
Building Inclusive & Accessible Applications for VR
October 16, 2019
@rolanddubois
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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
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Collage of community outreach
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Agenda
- Is VR inherently inaccessible?
- Accessibility & The Law
- Tools & Plugins For VR Apps
- Accessible Experiments In VR
- Take Action
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What do we think when we hear VR
https://www.flickr.com/photos/yelp/28474934237/
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How do we interact and play in VR?
Overview of VR controllers
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Trend towards spatial hand/gesture motion control
Kinemic
Bixi
Leap Motion
MYO
Gest
Nod
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Hand tracking in current hardware
Hololens 2, Magic Leap, VIVE Hand Tracking SDK, Oculus 2107 - Oculus Hand Tracking OC6
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Is VR inherently inaccessible?
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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.
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In Other Words:
Accessibility = Designing things to provide equal access to people with disabilities
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Disability Statistics From the CDC
The World Health Organization reports that there are 1 billion people in the world experiencing some form of disability
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61 million adults in the United States live with a disability
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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 “
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Some Types of Disabilities
- Physical
- Auditory
- Visual
- Psychological
- Cognitive
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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
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Microsoft's new accessible controller
Microsoft’s new accessible controller for disabled gamers will be sold in an innovative, fully accessible piece of packaging
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Domino’s Pizza v. Robles, Guillermo
Robles v. Domino’s Pizza, LLC, No. 17-55504 (9th Cir. 2019)
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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)
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Developing semantically structured apps solves more than 50% of the most common accessibility issues
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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
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Accessibility Tools & Plugins For VR Apps
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ColorBlindr Unity Plugin
https://github.com/Chman/ColorBlindr
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SeeingVR: Low Vision Tools For VR
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr4Ejq5fHMc
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WalkinVR: Steam Driver For VR
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4y_Bb3UZ1I
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WalkinVR: Steam Driver For VR
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCLSyhUmQ0M
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Accessible Experiments In VR
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Online Survey: People with Disabilities & VR Accessibility
https://disabilityvisibilityproject.com/2017/01/03/vr/
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BBC VR subtitle research & ImAc Prototypes
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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
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Seeing AI app from Microsoft
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqeQByqf_f8
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Navigating virtual environments for the visually impaired with spatial audio.
https://github.com/rdub80/gravr-a11y-demo
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DOT NY Prototype (POC) of a NYC street crossing with acoustic navigation training for people who are blind or visually impaired.
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DOT NY Prototype (POC) of a NYC street crossing with acoustic navigation training for people who are blind or visually impaired.
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Intersection Example - Desktop Playback
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From Sip-and-Puff To Binary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sip-and-puff
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Accessible Locomotion and Interaction in WebXR
https://blog.prototypr.io/accessible-locomotion-and-interaction-in-webxr-e4d87c512e51
https://devpost.com/software/accessiblelocomotionwebxr
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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
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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.
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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
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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/)
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Thank You!
Roland Dubois
rolanddubois.com
@rolanddubois
#aframe_nyc