NSF Convergence Accelerator Track H: Making Virtual Reality Meetings Accessible to Knowledge Workers with Visual Impairments

NSF 融合加速器轨道 H：让有视觉障碍的知识工作者也能参加虚拟现实会议

• 批准号: 2236054
• 负责人: Shiri Azenkot
• 金额: $ 75万
• 依托单位: Cornell University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-12-15 至 2024-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2236054&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NSF; Convergence; Accelerator; Track; Making

Virtual reality (VR) promises to be a widespread technology in the coming years, but it iscompletely inaccessible to people with visual impairments. One of the main advantages of VR isthat it emulates real-life interactions where people walk around and talk to one another usingnaturalistic nonverbal behavior. Meanwhile, remote work has become commonplace due to theCOVID-19 pandemic. Employers, researchers, and workers alike are expressing the need forVR workplaces, where they can more easily brainstorm and hold discussions with others.However, while researchers and practitioners have proposed some methods for improving VRaccessibility, no one has explored how interpersonal communication in VR can be made moreaccessible. While a blind person can hear someone speak, she misses out on onverbal cueslike proximity, gestures (waves, nods), and gaze. This proposal aims to investigate how suchnonverbal cues can be made accessible to improve the overall accessibility of VR to supportknowledge workers with visual impairments.The overarching goal of the project is to develop user-centered, evidence-based guidelines thatstipulate how VR can be made accessible to knowledge workers with visual impairments. Theinvestigators will focus on remote work use cases, where interpersonal communication andaccessible shared materials play central roles. Following user-centered design, they will conductfocus groups with knowledge workers with visual impairments to identify key use cases andneeds. Then they will design low-fidelity prototypes to explore accessible features. They willevaluate these prototypes with target users and develop a preliminary set of guidelines. Iffunded for Phase 2, they will iterate on the initial prototypes and rigorously evaluate them incontrolled studies. In addition, they will refine the guidelines and work to incorporate them intoexisting accessibility standards.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

虚拟现实（VR）有望在未来几年成为一项广泛应用的技术，但对于有视力障碍的人来说却完全无法使用。 VR 的主要优点之一是它模拟现实生活中的交互，即人们使用自然的非语言行为四处走动并相互交谈。与此同时，由于 COVID-19 大流行，远程工作已变得司空见惯。雇主、研究人员和工人都表达了对 VR 工作场所的需求，在那里他们可以更轻松地进行头脑风暴并与他人进行讨论。然而，尽管研究人员和从业者提出了一些提高 VR 无障碍性的方法，但没有人探索如何使 VR 中的人际交流变得更加无障碍。虽然盲人可以听到某人说话，但她会错过语言暗示，例如接近、手势（挥手、点头）和凝视。该提案旨在研究如何提供此类非语言提示，以提高 VR 的整体可访问性，以支持有视觉障碍的知识工作者。该项目的总体目标是制定以用户为中心、基于证据的指南，规定如何让有视觉障碍的知识工作者可以使用 VR。调查人员将重点关注远程工作用例，其中人际沟通和可访问的共享材料发挥着核心作用。按照以用户为中心的设计，他们将与有视觉障碍的知识工作者进行焦点小组讨论，以确定关键用例和需求。然后他们将设计低保真原型来探索可访问的功能。他们将与目标用户一起评估这些原型并制定一套初步指南。如果第二阶段获得资助，他们将迭代最初的原型，并在对照研究中严格评估它们。此外，他们还将完善指南并努力将其纳入现有的可访问性标准。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。