research-article

BlindWalkVR: formative insights into blind and visually impaired people's VR locomotion using commercially available approaches

Authors:

Julian Kreimeier,

Timo GötzelmannAuthors Info & Claims

PETRA '20: Proceedings of the 13th ACM International Conference on PErvasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments

Article No.: 29, Pages 1 - 8

https://doi.org/10.1145/3389189.3389193

Published: 30 June 2020 Publication History

Abstract

Virtual Reality (VR) promises expanded access to spatial information, especially for blind and visually impaired people. Through haptic and acoustic feedback, real world's limitations like the risk of injury or the necessity of a sighted safety assistant can be circumvented. However, the best possible profit of this technology requires interactive locomotion in large virtual environments to overcome real world space limitations. Thus, we present formative insights of blind people's egocentric VR locomotion by comparing four different implementations (i.e., two VR treadmills, trackers on the ankles or joystick based locomotion) in a qualitative and quantitative user study with seven blind and visually impaired participants. Our results reveal novel insights on characteristics of each implementation in terms of usability and practicability and also provide recommendations for further work in this field with the target user group in sight.

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Cited By

Ribeiro RGonçalves IPiçarra MSeixas Pereira LDuarte CRodrigues AGuerreiro J(2024)Investigating Virtual Reality Locomotion Techniques with Blind PeopleProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642088(1-17)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642088
Han SYoon PRen XKim K(2024)The Effects of Walk-in-Place and Overground Walking on the Acquisition of Spatial Information by People With Visual Impairment in Virtual Reality WayfindingInternational Journal of Human–Computer Interaction10.1080/10447318.2024.2325177(1-19)Online publication date: 13-Mar-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2024.2325177
Dang KKorreshi HIqbal YLee S(2023)Opportunities for Accessible Virtual Reality Design for Immersive Musical Performances for Blind and Low-Vision PeopleProceedings of the 2023 ACM Symposium on Spatial User Interaction10.1145/3607822.3614540(1-21)Online publication date: 13-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3607822.3614540
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

BlindWalkVR: formative insights into blind and visually impaired people's VR locomotion using commercially available approaches
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Human computer interaction (HCI)
    1. HCI design and evaluation methods
      1. User studies
    2. Interaction paradigms
      1. Virtual reality

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cover image ACM Other conferences

PETRA '20: Proceedings of the 13th ACM International Conference on PErvasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments

June 2020

574 pages

ISBN:9781450377737

DOI:10.1145/3389189

Conference Chair:
Fillia Makedon
University of Texas at Arlington

Copyright © 2020 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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NSF: National Science Foundation
CSE@UTA: Department of Computer Science and Engineering, The University of Texas at Arlington
NCRS: Demokritos National Center for Scientific Research

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 30 June 2020

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PETRA '20: The 13th PErvasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments Conference

June 30 - July 3, 2020

Corfu, Greece

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Cited By

Ribeiro RGonçalves IPiçarra MSeixas Pereira LDuarte CRodrigues AGuerreiro J(2024)Investigating Virtual Reality Locomotion Techniques with Blind PeopleProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642088(1-17)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642088
Han SYoon PRen XKim K(2024)The Effects of Walk-in-Place and Overground Walking on the Acquisition of Spatial Information by People With Visual Impairment in Virtual Reality WayfindingInternational Journal of Human–Computer Interaction10.1080/10447318.2024.2325177(1-19)Online publication date: 13-Mar-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2024.2325177
Dang KKorreshi HIqbal YLee S(2023)Opportunities for Accessible Virtual Reality Design for Immersive Musical Performances for Blind and Low-Vision PeopleProceedings of the 2023 ACM Symposium on Spatial User Interaction10.1145/3607822.3614540(1-21)Online publication date: 13-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3607822.3614540
Guerreiro JKim YNogueira RChung SRodrigues AOh U(2023)The Design Space of the Auditory Representation of Objects and Their Behaviours in Virtual Reality for Blind PeopleIEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics10.1109/TVCG.2023.324709429:5(2763-2773)Online publication date: May-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/TVCG.2023.3247094
Machado FLoureiro MMello RDiaz CFrizera A(2023)A novel mixed reality assistive system to aid the visually and mobility impaired using a multimodal feedback systemDisplays10.1016/j.displa.2023.10248079(102480)Online publication date: Sep-2023
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.displa.2023.102480
Creed CAl-Kalbani MTheil ASarcar SWilliams I(2023)Inclusive AR/VR: accessibility barriers for immersive technologiesUniversal Access in the Information Society10.1007/s10209-023-00969-023:1(59-73)Online publication date: 2-Feb-2023
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-023-00969-0
Dudley JYin LGaraj VKristensson P(2023)Inclusive Immersion: a review of efforts to improve accessibility in virtual reality, augmented reality and the metaverseVirtual Reality10.1007/s10055-023-00850-827:4(2989-3020)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10055-023-00850-8
Han SYoon PHa MKim K(2022)VR Wayfinding Training for People with Visual Impairment using VR Treadmill and VR Tracker2022 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (VRW)10.1109/VRW55335.2022.00149(596-597)Online publication date: Mar-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/VRW55335.2022.00149
Oumard CKreimeier JGoetzelmann TMakedon F(2021)Preliminary Analysis on Interaction Characteristics with Auditive Navigation in Virtual EnvironmentsProceedings of the 14th PErvasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments Conference10.1145/3453892.3461654(514-520)Online publication date: 29-Jun-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3453892.3461654
Bandukda MHolloway CSingh ABarbareschi GBerthouze N(2021)Opportunities for Supporting Self-efficacy Through Orientation & Mobility Training Technologies for Blind and Partially Sighted PeopleProceedings of the 23rd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility10.1145/3441852.3471224(1-13)Online publication date: 17-Oct-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3441852.3471224

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