Immersive technology is a fairly nascent discovery that has a lot of potential as a teaching tool and research aide.
To understand the importance of inclusive immersive experience design we must first understand what these terms refer to.
Immersive technology is anything that extends reality or creates a new one. Extended reality (XR) is an umbrella term for all intersections of reality with technological augmentation.
This includes wearables, augmented reality (AR), augmented virtuality (AV), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR) . The virtuality continuum depicted below was developed in 1994 by Paul Milgram and Fumio Kishino illustrates how technologies like AR, AV, VR, and MR intersect with reality. The purpose of these technologies is to enhance and augment reality in useful ways that can be accomplished in no other media format. 
Some of the affordances unique to this technology as described by Zac Zidik include:
- Exploration with Focus on Spatial Recognition
- Physical and Spatial Interactions
- Appreciation of Relative Scale
- Personally Relevant “Discovery Narratives”
- Social Physical and Social Spatial Interactions
CIE examples of achievements include applying virtual solutions to:
• Expose geology students to field measurement techniques from the comfort of home
• Build a VR buffet where the elements of food choice and portion size selection can be examined using real world scale.
• Speed up the assembly and disassembly time of a rocket’s x-ray equipment for an engineering lab
• Scale, highlight and discern structures of the liquid internal anatomy of a honey bee to allow students to explore their function without needing any introduction to microscopy.
The successful application of these technologies in academic settings is reliant on communication between educators, researchers, designers, developers and users. The ability to define user groups, project goals, and the data metrics that must be collected to assess whether those goals are met in advance of development can only happen through developing a mutual understanding and level of trust between these groups. Due to the gap between design and implementation it is key that there is active feedback from all these groups through iterative design processes with play testing opportunities early on. It is also essential that disabled users and designer are involved early in this process in order to lend important perspectives that a non-disabled designer may not have to consider.
The purpose of both universal design and inclusive design is to eliminate barriers to access and enjoyment in immersive experiences but there is a difference in connotation between the two terms. Universal design is defined as “the design of mainstream products that are accessible to and usable by as many people as reasonably possible without need for adaptation or specialized design”. To illustrate the way universal design can serve multiple groups of people at once consider how curb cuts not only allow those in wheelchairs to more easily exit the sidewalk but also aid those with roller suitcases or transport dollies. This can be defined as one solution that benefits many. This concept is admirable as it seeks to engage larger audiences, but in practice a “one-size-fits-all” mentality is rarely capable of encompassing all user bases.
For example, an immersive experience can be accompanied by online content that may make it technically ADA and WCAG compliant, but offering the same content in a non-immersive format is not an equivalent alternative as it lacks the elements of engagement and interaction that are unique to VR/AR. If you provide alternative access to content for an immersive experience on a desktop, you lose elements like immersive audio, 360° visuals and feedback through hand controllers in this translation. Content compliance is not necessarily synonymous with being accessible or inclusive, even disability compliant content will still be inaccessible to to certain users in certain contexts. Sometimes design that is intended to assist those with disabilities misses the mark, like when an immersive allows for stationary play to accomodate mobility impairments but fails to offer height correction so those who may be sitting in a wheelchair still have to reach and bend and stretch into uncomfortable positions to interact with content. Creating an accessible experience should never be an either/or option where sacrifices are made to the experience of one user group in order to benefit another. Accessibility can be about creating multiple paths to the same content.
(John Greiner The Path to Access)
What inclusive design strives to do is go beyond compliance and account for the diverse contexts and abilities of a wide audience in order to better inform the ways that different users may seek different approaches to gain the same benefit from immersive technology. This can be described as using multiple solutions in consideration of multiple kinds of users. Inclusive design encourages customization options for avatars, controls, and interfaces. This one-size-fits-one approach as posed by Kat Holmes seems to pose the best solution for challenges that are so heavily dependent on context and variance among individuals.
That is why such a thorough examination of factors that could effect an experience are crucial during the early production stages. Thankfully many of these decisions can be deferred to the expertise of the course content creators and researchers who have the training and experience to make their content accessible to their audience. It is the job of the designer to take this information and apply it in the format of an immersive experience.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs illustrates psychological motivators that drive our decisions and perceptions. These same needs carry across into the virtual world, if a user does not have their foundational needs met in both virtual and physical realities it could disrupt their experience and affect intended outcomes.
At the foundation of the hierarchy are basic needs like physiological fulfillment and safety which are an essential considerations in any experience design. Imagine an AR tour given in a busy cityscape where the device may serve as a distraction making the player vulnerable to dangers like traffic in their surroundings, or how care must be taken in a VR space to make sure players won’t trip over objects or bump into walls.
Safety in this hierarchy also refers to conservation of essential resources like money that help assure basic needs are met. This is why cost is such a major barrier that prevents many from engaging in immersive experiences. The devices themselves are expensive but they also have specific system requirements and often need fast and stable internet connections to operate properly. Luckily this barrier is currently being rectified by making headsets available for check out in library spaces where users receive assisted guidance or freely explore.
Comfort is also a foundational need in this hierarchy, the moment a user experiences discomfort the headset is removed and can often lead to a negative impression of the experience. One of the most common issues users face in virtual reality is nausea, and it is not a question of “if” but “when” it will happen which is why shorter experiences often fair better among test groups. Some find relief through acupressure wearables. Including multiple modes of locomotion to choose from in the design of the experience can also help. Many users may feel more enjoyment from controlling movement with a joystick, but others may find teleportation reduces motion sickness.
Space is also an important factor when considering user comfort. Having room for any movement necessary and safe surrounds that do not distract or threaten the wellbeing of the user is important to find in advance of testing an experience.
Disability impacts everyone, many considerations made to assist user groups with disabilities trigger a cascade of unintended benefits for other user groups. Here are some common disabilities as described by the CDC that developers and designers can keep in mind when building an experience. Many individuals can experience one of more of these disabilities whether short-term or long-term.
The most common disability at any life stage is limited mobility. For this reason it is helpful to including gameplay options for stationary or one-handed controls. Though gestural controls aren’t optimal in all headsets allowing them as an option can alleviate those with mobility limitations of the hands and digits. Assistive technology can also play an important role, enabling custom control systems integrated with VR hardware, head tracking, or eye gaze can be helpful optional features to allow users to navigate menus and make selections. This often requires additional software to link the two systems but upcoming immersive tech is beginning to incorporate features like eye tracking, head tracking and gestural controls in headsets. Experiences that function with a prolonged need to maintain grip, place arms over head, or hold hands up can cause fatigue so the ability to adjust these level of interaction to access these features can be key to maintain comfort in experiences for the entire duration.
(above is one example of assistive technology: a braille display)
Cognitive disabilities (also known as intellectual disabilities) include conditions such as aphasia, Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), dyslexia, dyscalculia, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), and memory loss. Many of the accommodations made for those with cognitive disabilities have value for all users, such as enlarged text, using friendly fonts that are sans-serif, and have high level of distinction between vowels/similar shaped letters, and the ability to pause, skip or repeat a content segment. Learning how to build multiple access points for users to explore content that caters to their unique learning style is essential. Knowing how users learn and what motivates them to explore helps designers and developers apply multiple learning theories to convey content. It is rare that the initial interactions with new information will achieve longitudinal learning goals, so making experiences that have replay-ability value by including incentives to challenge the player of gain access to more content is key.
Another disability to make considerations for is visual impairment. Many people who are considered “legally blind” have partial sight. Only approximately 15% of those with vision impairment have total vision loss. Immersive experiences can be engaging without visual cues by relying on other features like audio or tactile feedback. Jesse Anderson, the “legally blind”creator of IllegallySighted youtube channel, recommends ways to create better access to visual content. These recommendations include creating options to change text size, and using friendly fonts that are sans-serif, and have high level of distinction between vowels/similar shaped letters. Designers can also facilitate linking to assistive technology like screen readers, braille displays, haptic controls, voice commands, audio descriptions and head tracking that allows users to lean in to read or reposition their menus. Allowing users to manage game difficulty can also be a great aid to those who struggle with visual impairments. It is also useful for designers to rely on tools like dopely to create color palettes with WCAG compliant contrast to accomodate colorblindness.
(above is an example of a color palette that does not have compliant contrast for those with tritanopia, courtesy of dopely.com)
Auditory impairments can be accommodated through including additional formats of instruction, such as captions, visual directions, and visual representations of music or audio such as facial expressions or tone changes in the environment (ominous, vs bright and happy to accompany and augment sound design).
It is also good to consider that many individuals do not experience just a single disability but may have a combination. Many strategies mentioned above have overlaps that serve multiple user groups such as custom height, text size, and options for stationary play, pausing or repeating a content segments. It is important to understand that a single user may belong to multiple groups.
We mentioned how immersive experiences can be built to accommodate common forms of assistive technology, but it can also act as an assistive technology itself. Some examples of this include using VR for art therapy, hearing aid fittings, vision augmentation and stroke rehabilitation. Social VR can also serve as a mobility aide to give people with limited locomotion and energy the ability to join social experiences that aren’t feasible otherwise as a great way to improve connection and communication. While the current state of motion capture and AI aren’t yet able to integrate sign language in virtual spaces easily, it may soon be feasible for two virtual avatars to have a conversation with one speaking in ASL and one speaking english with the aid of a virtual translator. Translating information collected from virtual capture and tracking of spatial movements involved in complex gestures may become easier with VR than attempting to use AI software to interpret the same gestures from a video recording.
Ultimately all these considerations and solutions are dependent on the content they are created to represent and the instructors and researchers who are passionate about the content. Through their collaborative efforts any experience can be tailored to be accessible to a broader audience through creating customizable user interface (UI), integration of assistive tech, and maintaining an active dialogue to gain feedback from users about any challenges to accessibility they face.
-Special thanks to Breanne Kisselstein for her contributions to this article. Breanne is a DeafBlind PhD candidate at Cornell University, and an advocate for people with disabilities, gender minorities, and all other underrepresented minorities (URMs).