What are some of the ways we design accessibility for Virtual Reality?
As someone who has been using VR for two years now and with the rise of XR the umbrella term which covers; Extended Reality, Augmented Reality, and the topic of today Virtual Reality. Especially with all the buzz of Web 3.0, AI Stealing our Jobs (Which we’ll cover later I’m sure of) and the Metaverse — If you haven’t had enough of this Magical McGuffin of the Tech World. I wanted to branch off from a previous post to look more into the history of Virtual Reality and look at some of the ways we are already catering for accessibility in Virtual Reality Experiences.
A Brief History and Research of Motion Controls and the Nintendo Wii
The early 2000s was a great period of innovation for game technology that I might talk about and discuss in a separate blog later on. But with the release of the Wii and Nintendo’s flagship Sports games, Wii Sports (2006) and later Wii Sports Resort (2009) there was a drive in creating fun games for the family that also could be used to supplement exercise.
The Wii Remote or colloquially named Wiimote, was one of the earlier flagships of motion controllers — Which later would come with an additional accessory ‘Motion Plus’ which rolled into the all-in-one Wii Remote Plus. It uses a tuning fork gyroscope, which combined with the accelerometer and Sensor Bar capabilities of the Wii Remote, allowed the controller motions to be rendered identically on the screen in real-time, according to Nintendo.
Wii’s Birth of the Switch
The Wii Remotes and motion controls and with feedback from players partly served as inspiration for the form and design of their new flagship the Nintendo Switch (2017).
“[The] Wii is a much-talked-about example of Nintendo’s experience of success, but the developers began to rethink their hardware design after receiving feedback from global users of Wii Sports and Wii Fit, saying things like the Wii Remote should have had different design features, or should have been small enough to attach to the leg,” — Miyamoto Game Director of Nintendo
The primary game controllers for the Switch are called the Joy-Cons, Individually called Joy-Con L & Joy-Con R which can be used when attached to the main Ninto Switch console unit, or detached and used wirelessly and can operate autonomously from each other. Joy-Cons can be divided between two players, and up to 8 Joy-Cans can connect to a single Switch console at a time.
Like its predecessor, each Joy-Con contains an accelerometer and gyroscope, which can be used for motion tracking. Games can support using the Joy-Con for pointing controls similar to the Wii Remote while detached without the need of a sensor bar. Joy-Con R contains an infrared depth tracking sensor, which can read objects and motions held in front of it; as an example of its functionality, Nintendo stated that the sensor could distinguish between the hand shapes of rock–paper–scissors.
Utilising the Power of VR
Now — to be as my wish to one day get a hold of a Switch to play Pokemon with Kate and maybe ween her onto getting Animal Crossing New Horizons (2020) and make my own adorable island for her to visit. I currently only own the Valve Index (2019) which also just so happens to be one of the best VR Headsets on the market as of writing this article — I’ve heard rumblings of the Meta Quest Pro (2022) being the new top dog on the block.
Valve Index was produced in-house and manufactured completely by Valve. The game Half-Life Alyx is bundled with the headset on purchase, a spin-off from Valve’s famous Half-Life Series (Still waiting on Half-Life 3). Its unique selling point is that it lets you reach out and grab an object directly, without using a trigger to substitute the interaction.
Each controller uses 87 sensors to track hand position, finger position, motion, and pressure to determine user intent. All of these signals, combined with fine-tuned software and algorithms, give us a better understanding of how a player is holding and using the controllers.
This allows you to drop and throw objects around like you would in real life. Designed for ‘open-hand’ interactions secured with a hand strap so you don’t have to constantly grip the controllers and relax your hand. Further, it has a built-in force sensor so it can detect the difference between a light touch to a firm squeeze. Finally, it has a track button on the face of the controller that also comes with a force sensor but also acts as a trackpad, scroll wheel or, as simply another additional big button — using its force sensor to detect pinching or pressing motions.
Where does accessibility come in?
Well since XR and today's topic of VR is still fairly brand-new.
Generally with Web Accessibility, these are just a few examples that cater to a broad range of disabilities (but not all);
- Alternative Text for Images
- Keyboard Input
- Transcripts for Audio
- Alternate Interactions e.g. software that relies on voice-only interactions, or in the case of VR alternative options for controllers and motion input.
When we look at existing VR games and products out there in particular the social game VRChat.
As it's not only a VR Game but a social platform of sorts it has more accessibility features than most, allowing for UI Scaling and alternative inputs for controller and keyboard support. But also options like;
Text to Text
This is the “speech bubble” that appears above a user for those who have speech disorders can still communicate.
Mic Sensitivity
Custom Mic Sensitivity will allow users to adjust the “trigger point” at which the user’s microphone sends audio to others, helping users with noisy real-life environments.
Movable Main Menu
Main Menu is movable and interactive so you can grab it and move it around with your controller.
Haptic Feedback
Haptics on touch is a popular feature request where your controller haptics activate when you come in contact with someone’s Avatar Dynamics.
While these are good they still don’t cover some of the main barriers to VR being that the main forms of interaction in VR rely mainly on the head, hands and arms, which can exclude those with motor impairments. More obviously those with visual impairments. Apart from full blindness, barriers in VR can occur for people with low vision, or unequal vision in one eye.
Some specific to VR experiences, are having to wear glasses under a headset or zooming in and movement. Which can cause simulation sickness and disorientation in VR.
Boneworks is a game developed by Stress Level Zero which pushes the interaction you can do using VR. It’s a First-person shooter, but also has puzzles and obstacles and almost every object is interactable.
However, what you can interact with takes into account the object’s size, weight and material. Smaller objects can be picked up with one hand, whereas larger objects require two hands to pick up.
Stationary objects like railings and ladders need to be physically climbed up, using your hands to simulate climbing up a ladder. Movement like springing, jumping and crouching can all be performed either on controllers or you can crouch in real life.
Games like Boneworks and VRChat enable us to see how can create either deeply immersive interactive experiences or social experiences within the confines of VR. But at the cost of excluding those with impairments as we tread into this new foray into VR experiences there are not many specially made accessible experiences — but not to say developers aren’t trying.
Crystal Rift — The menu is physically present in the VR space allowing users to lean in to physically take a closer look at the menu.
The Persistence — Uses sound cues to progress in the game to detect enemies. However, for those who have audio impairments, it provides a visual cue to indicate the direction of when enemies make noise.
Moss — Has the most integrated experience, the character Quill is a mouse, in the image above, and as it’s a mouse it can’t talk so uses American sign language to communicate to the player — alongside the use of subtitle options to aid players.
Island 359 — Most VR experiences enable the option for standing and “Seated Mode” for those sitting in chairs. Island 359 incorporates this as well as “Bump Turns” so you can turn with the controller rather than physically turning to look around. Another option it has is the use of “Reach Assist”, the player can aim their controller at an object that is out of reach in order to interact with it.
Many of these features in Island 359 have also been integrated into VRChat as part of their drive to allow everyone to access its social environment. These are becoming standard control options which are being implemented into other VR titles and experiences.
While Virtual Reality is still in its infancy it’s important to be aware of how we can create more accessible experiences so that all users can interact with these fantastical immersive experiences.
