CAREER: Supporting Interaction with Dynamic Virtual Reality Experiences for People with Visual Impairments

虚拟现实(VR)是一种计算机生成的模拟，将人插入到3D环境中。VR在教育、培训、康复、旅游等领域都有应用。然而，由于许多VR体验依赖于视觉，导致视力障碍者无法获得这些体验，因此需要研究如何让这些体验更广泛地获得。可访问性的一个关键障碍是，使用VR的人经常与模拟中移动的对象交互。该项目将开发将声音、振动和其他线索结合在一起的方法，以帮助视觉障碍者更有效地定位虚拟对象并与其互动。在这项工作的基础上，项目团队将创建指导方针和工具，软件开发人员可以使用它们来创建更无障碍的VR体验，让视力障碍者获得教育、身临其境和社交方面的好处。该团队将与视障人士密切合作，既是参与者，也是合作者，包括通过一年一度的计算夏令营为视障青年提供参与计算的机会。该项目的目标是帮助视障人士理解并在具有移动目标的虚拟现实环境中行动。为了实现这些目标，该团队将专注于VR交互的三个关键组成部分：1)帮助人们在垂直平面上准确选择附近的目标；2)准确描述接近目标的接触时间；3)使用位置隐喻来同时指示多个虚拟目标的位置。解决每个目标都需要在如何向视觉障碍用户提供信息、如何处理视觉障碍用户的输入以及如何模拟用户意图方面进行创新。该团队将使用以用户为中心的设计方法开发虚拟现实体验，并对每个挑战的解决方案进行实验室和纵向评估。该项目的教育计划包括向有视觉障碍的青年教授计算概念，将研究传播到不太以技术为中心的领域，并将无障碍主题纳入计算课程。这项研究将解决让视障人士能够访问虚拟现实的悬而未决的问题，根据经验证据为可访问的虚拟现实体验设定指导方针，并开发一个开源工具包。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Virtual reality (VR) is a computer-generated simulation that inserts a person into a 3D environment. VR has applications in education, training, rehabilitation, tourism, and other domains. However, because many VR experiences rely on vision, making them inaccessible to people with visual impairments, research is needed in how to make these experiences more widely available. One key barrier to accessibility is that people using VR frequently interact with objects in the simulation that move. This project will develop methods for incorporating sound, vibration, and other cues to help people with visual impairments locate and interact with virtual objects more effectively. Based on this work, the project team will create guidelines and tools software developers can use to create more accessible VR experiences, allowing people with visual impairments to reap their educational, immersive, and social benefits. The team will work closely with people with visual impairments as both participants and collaborators, including providing opportunities for youth with visual impairments to participate in computing through an annual computing camp.The goal of this project is to help people with visual impairments understand and act on virtual reality environments that have moving targets. To meet these goals, the team will focus on three key components of VR interaction: 1) helping people accurately select nearby targets on a vertical plane, 2) accurately depicting the time-to-contact of approaching targets, and 3) using positional metaphors to indicate the location of multiple virtual targets simultaneously. Addressing each objective requires innovation in how to provide information to users with visual impairments, how to process input from users with visual impairments, and how to model a user's intent. The team will develop the virtual reality experiences using user-centered design approaches and conduct both lab and longitudinal evaluations of the solutions to each challenge. The project's education plan includes teaching computing concepts to youth with visual impairments, disseminating the research to less technology-centric fields, and integrating accessibility topics into computing coursework. This research will address unsolved problems in making virtual reality accessible to people with visual impairments, set guidelines for accessible virtual reality experiences based on empirical evidence, and develop an open-source toolkit.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.