Towards Accessible News Reading Design in Virtual Reality for Low Vision

authors

  • Wu Hui-Yin
  • Calabrese Aurelie
  • Kornprobst Pierre

keywords

  • Virtual reality
  • Low vision
  • Human-computer interactions
  • Accessible reading

document type

REPORT

abstract

Low-vision conditions resulting in partial loss of the visual field strongly affect patients' daily tasks and routines, and none more prominently than the ability to access text. Though vision aids such as magnifiers, digital screens, and text-to-speech devices can improve overall accessibility to text, news media, which is non-linear and has complex and volatile formatting, is still inaccessible, barring low-vision patients from easy access to essential news content. This paper positions virtual reality as the next step towards accessible and enjoyable news reading for the low vision. We first conduct an extensive review into existing research on low-vision reading technologies and accessibility for modern news media. From previous research and studies, we then conduct an analysis into the advantages of virtual reality for low-vision reading and propose comprehensive guidelines for visual accessibility design in virtual reality, with a focus on reading. This is coupled with a hands-on study of eight reading applications in virtual reality to evaluate how accessibility design is currently implemented in existing products. Finally, we present a framework that integrates the design principles resulting from our analysis and study, and implement a proof-of-concept for this framework using browser-based graphics to demonstrate the feasibility of our proposal with modern virtual reality technology.

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