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Identifier 000461064
Title A methodological framework and software tools for accessible by design extended reality environments
Alternative Title Μεθοδολογικό πλαίσιο και εργαλεία λογισμικού για τη δημιουργία, εκ σχεδιασμού, προσβάσιμων περιβαλλόντων εκτεταμένης πραγματικότητας
Author Βαλάκου, Αικατερίνη Γ.
Thesis advisor Στεφανίδης, Κωνσταντίνος
Reviewer Τσαγκατάκης, Γρηγόρης
Γραμένος, Δημήτριος
Abstract The recent abundance of Extended Reality (XR) technologies has transformed the way we perceive and interact with digital information. XR spans along the reality-virtuality continuum permeating diverse sectors, from entertainment and gaming to education, healthcare, and industry. As XR continues to gain widespread acceptance, it has become increasingly clear that this innovative paradigm holds the potential not only to redefine our digital experiences but also to impact the way we engage with technology itself. However, amidst the excitement and promise of XR, digital accessibility is a crucial issue that demands our prompt attention. More specifically, in the current rapidly evolving technological landscape, it is essential to prioritize accessibility as a fundamental aspect of XR development. This necessitates a shift in current practices toward a proactive commitment to incorporating accessibility features from the outset of XR projects, which is a concept referred to as "Accessibility by Design" within the XR landscape. In this respect, XR becomes not only transformative, but also equitable and inclusive, ensuring that every individual, regardless of their abilities, can harness its full potential. The concept of Accessibility by Design is stemming from the Universal Access and Design for All principles, advocating the importance of catering for the needs of all individuals, including persons with disabilities, at design time, avoiding a posteriori adaptation to products or services to make them accessible. In the context of XR, this approach takes on particular significance, especially considering that despite the fact that XR is still an emerging field, the discussion on accessibility has already yielded guidelines that should be adhered to for the development of accessible user experience. Furthermore, as a result of these efforts, XR technologies have shown great promise in developing tools to assist users with visual impairments. These tools focus on assisting users with visual impairments in interacting with the XR environment through basic assistive functionalities, such as zoom-in, text enlargement, as well as the provision of alternative input and output modalities. Nevertheless, despite considerable progress, most of these initiatives remain proprietary software solutions, often limited to the research prototype phase. The seamless integration of these solutions into mainstream XR applications or platforms remains an open challenge, mainly due to the lack of generic and cohesive approaches promoting accessibility across platforms in a consistent manner. This thesis introduces a methodological accessibility framework and pertinent software tools for the development of inclusive Extended Reality (XR) applications, following the ‘Accessible by Design’ approach. The framework, built upon XR accessibility guidelines, best practices, and cutting-edge techniques, addresses the needs of individuals with disabilities, with a primary focus on blind and partially sighted users. Key features include customizable text settings, alternative text on visual elements, multiple user interaction controls, edge enhancement for visual elements, audio description of the visual elements, hierarchical navigation, foreground positioning of active objects, and adaptable scene configurations. Furthermore, it allows the enhancement of XR elements with haptics, providing force and temperature feedback, aiming to augment users’ perception with additional information, allowing for example developers to realistically represent virtual elements by imparting information about their physical characteristics in the real world. The proposed framework was built following a human- centered design approach, with the active involvement of individuals with vision impairments and pertinent stakeholders in the requirements specification phase, as well as in its evaluation. The proposed framework has been implemented as an assets package made on the Unity Game Engine, available to be installed in XR applications. To facilitate testing and evaluation, a Unity 3D sample scene was developed, using the accessibility features of the framework. This scene presents a Virtual Reality (VR) museum, showcasing different virtual rooms exhibiting 3D cultural heritage (CH) artefacts. In order to assess the proposed framework, a user-based evaluation of the use-case VR museum was carried out, involving 20 participants with vision impairments who assessed the system's effectiveness, usability, mental workload, VR-induced sickness symptoms, and haptic experience. The evaluation results demonstrate that the framework enhances the exploration of VR environments, permitting users with vision impairments to efficiently navigate in the environment and effectively perceive the museum exhibits, providing at the same time a positive user experience without imposing undue cognitive load.
Language English
Subject Accessibility by design
Προσβασιμότητα εκ σχεδιασμού
Issue date 2023-12-01
Collection   School/Department--School of Sciences and Engineering--Department of Computer Science--Post-graduate theses
  Type of Work--Post-graduate theses
Permanent Link https://elocus.lib.uoc.gr//dlib/1/d/f/metadata-dlib-1701962198-361972-19405.tkl Bookmark and Share
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