Understanding Accessibility for Physically Disabled Users in VR: Interplay of Physical, Digital, and Experiential Layers
Marvin Wolf, Kathrin Gerling, Dmitry Alexandrovsky, Merlin Steven Opp, Jan Ole Rixen · 2025
Virtual Reality (VR) promises to enable people to fully immerse themselves in virtual worlds.However, the body-centricity of VR results in accessibility concerns for people with physical disabilities.In our work, we build on existing research that focuses on physical accessibility and discuss the digital layer that includes the design of avatars and virtual worlds, and the experiential layer that addresses the experience that VR provides for people with physical disabilities.We present findings from a qualitative study (N=16) that combined semi-structured interviews with hands-on exploration of state-of-the-art VR hardware and applications.Leveraging Qualitative Content Analysis, our results show that physical, digital, and experiential accessibility concerns are often intertwined and must be seen in conjunction.Additionally, we show that application contexts (e.g., gaming or social VR) shape accessibility concerns and preferences.On this basis, we contribute a nuanced discussion of the complexity of VR accessibility and examine context-specific accessibility preferences using the examples of VR gaming and social VR that need to be accounted for to create accessible and enriching VR experiences.