Research Guides: VR Research: Accessibility

Introduction

Designing VR to be accessible for disabled people is a practice that has a lot in common with video game accessibility, due to similarities in equipment and environments. Here are some resources for exploring this topic as a player / user, an educator, or a designer / developer.

For Players and Users

VR Is Here to Stay. It's Time to Make It Accessible.
An article by Grant Stoner from WIRED about the trend of VR games and how accessible they are to disabled players.
XR Access Initiative
“A community committed to making virtual, augmented, and mixed reality (XR) accessible to people with disabilities” by providing a network of research, projects, resources, and events.
Can I Play That?
A site that “provides accessibility game reviews, commentary, news, and accessibility reference guides by disabled gamers, for disabled gamers”, and includes reviews of VR games.

For Educators

XR Accessibility
UC Berkeley’s guide to VR accessibility based on the principles of Universal Design for Learning.
Extended Reality and Accessibility
An article by Ruth Le from the University of Michigan about VR accessibility in the context of online teaching.

For Designers and Developers

Game Accessibility Guidelines
A set of guidelines, ranging from basic to advanced, for designers and developers of games, which include the use of VR technology.
AR/VR/XR Archives (Equal Entry)
An archive of blog posts on VR technology from Equal Entry, an international company focused on providing accessibility auditing, training, and legal services to “improve public education about accessibility”.
Accessibility Options in Virtual Reality Gaming: A Case Study with Myst
An Equal Entry blog post by Meryl Evans about the accessibility options designed into the Myst VR game, and how they shaped her play experience.
Accessible Virtual Reality: Advice from a Deaf Person on How to Make It Better
An Equal Entry blog post by Meryl Evans about her various VR experiences and how they could be improved through captions, setting design, and other technical elements.