Virtual environments (VEs) afford similar interactions to those in physical environments: individuals can navigate and manipulate objects. Yet, a prerequisite for these interactions is being able to view the environment. Despite the existence of numerous scene-viewing techniques (i.e., interaction techniques that facilitate the visual perception of virtual scenes), there is no guidance to help designers choose which techniques to implement. We propose a scene taxonomy based on the visual structure and task within a VE by drawing on literature from cognitive psychology and computer vision, as well as virtual reality (VR) applications. We demonstrate how the taxonomy can be used by applying it to an accessibility problem, namely limited head mobility. We used the taxonomy to classify existing scene-viewing techniques and generate three new techniques that do not require head movement. In our evaluation of the techniques with 16 participants, we discovered that participants identified tradeoffs in design considerations such as accessibility, realism, and spatial awareness, that would influence whether they would use the new techniques. Our results demonstrate the potential of the scene taxonomy to help designers reason about the relationships between VR interactions, tasks, and environments.

Although virtual reality (VR) is becoming increasingly popular and many interaction techniques for navigating virtual environments, known as “locomotion techniques,” exist, data regarding the accessibility of locomotion techniques for people with upper-body motor impairments do not exist, making it difficult to understand which locomotion techniques work well for users and why. To address this gap, we conducted a study with 19 participants with upper-body motor impairments who completed a navigation task in VR using six seated locomotion techniques. We collected task performance data and elicited participant feedback using questionnaires and interviews. We found that participants performed similarly well with three techniques that required one controller input, little to no upper-body movement, and had a low perceived workload: Teleport, Astral Body, and Sliding Looking. However, Teleport was consistently favored in interview responses and could be considered the best technique for this group of participants. On the other hand, participants performed similarly poorly with three techniques that required arm, head, and torso movement and also rated these techniques as having a high workload: Chicken Acceleration, Grab and Pull, and Throw Teleport. However, participants did not necessarily prefer or want to use the techniques with which they performed best or had the lowest perceived workloads. Factors such as enjoyment, exercise, and presence sometimes outweighed accessibility. This finding suggests that accessibility alone should not override all other considerations when designing or recommending locomotion techniques to people with upper-body motor impairments, and that users with disabilities should have a range of accessible locomotion techniques to choose from based on their preferences.

We propose Nearmi, a framework that enables designers to create customizable and accessible point-of-interest (POI) techniques in virtual reality (VR) for people with limited mobility. Designers can use Nearmi by creating and combining instances of its four components—representation, display, selection, and transition. These components enable users to gain awareness of POIs in virtual environments, and automatically re-orient the virtual camera toward a selected POI. We conducted a video elicitation study where 17 participants with limited mobility provided feedback on different Nearmi implementations. Although participants generally weighed the same design considerations when discussing their preferences, their choices reflected tradeoffs in accessibility, realism, spatial awareness, comfort, and familiarity with the interaction. Our findings highlight the need for accessible and customizable VR interaction techniques, as well as design considerations for building and evaluating these techniques.

We conceptualize Digital Design Marginalization (DDM) as the process in which a digital interface design excludes certain users and contributes to marginalization in other areas of their lives. Due to non-inclusive designs, many underrepresented users face barriers in accessing essential services that are moving increasingly, sometimes exclusively, online – services such as personal finance, healthcare, social connectivity, and shopping. This can further perpetuate the “digital divide,” a technology-based form of social inequality that has offline consequences. We introduce the term Marginalizing Design to describe designs that contribute to DDM. In this paper, we focus on the impact of Marginalizing Design on older adults through examples from our research and discussions of services that may have marginalizing designs for older adults. Our aim is to provide a conceptual lens for designers, service providers, and policy makers through which they can use to purposely lessen or avoid digitally marginalizing groups of users.

A gender stereotype that has some basis in research is that men are more reluctant to ask for directions than women. We wanted to investigate whether this stereotype applies to technology-related contexts, affecting older adults' abilities to learn new technologies. To explore how help seeking and gender might relate for older adults, we conducted a controlled experiment with 36 individuals, of whom 18 identified as men and 18 identified as women, and observed how often they asked for help when learning new applications. We also conducted post-experiment interviews with participants. We found that although most participants stereotyped older men as being reluctant to ask for help in the interview, the gender difference was minimal in the experiment. Instead, individual differences had a greater effect: older participants took longer to complete tasks and participants with lower technology self-efficacy asked significantly more questions.

To understand whether people can identify their optimal touchscreen target sizes, we asked older and younger adults to identify optimal target sizes on a questionnaire and compared these chosen sizes to performance on a target acquisition task. We found that older individuals (60+) were better than younger adults at choosing their optimal target sizes. In fact, younger adults underestimated the smallest target size they could accurately touch by almost 6mm. This study suggests that older adults may be able to better configure target size settings than younger adults.

To investigate how older adults perceive ability changes (e.g., sensory, physical, cognitive) and how attitudes toward those changes affect perception and adoption of built-in mobile accessibility features (such as those found on Apple iOS and Google Android smartphones and tablets), we conducted an interview study with 14 older adults and six of their family members. Accessibility features were difficult for participants to find and configure, which were issues compounded by a reluctance to use trial-and-error. At 4-6 weeks after the interview, however, some participants had adopted new accessibility features that we had showed them, suggesting a willingness to adopt once features are made visible. The older adults who did already use accessibility features had experienced a disability earlier in life, suggesting that those experiencing progressive ability changes later in life might not be as aware of accessibility features, or might not have the know-how to adapt technologies to their changing needs. Our findings provide support for creating technologies that can detect older adults' abilities and recommend or enact interface changes to match.

Prior work has explored communication challenges faced by people who are deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) and the potential role of new captioning and support technologies to address these challenges; however, the focus has been on stationary contexts such as group meetings and lectures. In this paper, we present two studies examining the needs of DHH people in moving contexts (e.g., walking) and the potential for mobile captions on head-mounted displays (HMDs) to support those needs. Our formative study with 12 DHH participants identifies social and environmental challenges unique to or exacerbated by moving contexts. Informed by these findings, we introduce and evaluate a proof-of-concept HMD prototype with 10 DHH participants. Results show that, while walking, HMD captions can support communication access and improve attentional balance between the speakers(s) and navigating the environment. We close by describing open questions in the mobile context space and design guidelines for future technology.

Adoption and use of novel technology by the institutionalized 'oldest old' (80+) is understudied. This population is the fastest growing demographic group in developed countries, providing design opportunities and challenges for HCI. Since the recruitment of oldest old people is challenging, research tends to focus on older adults (65+) and their use of and attitudes towards existing communication technologies, or on their caregivers and social ties. Our study deployed a novel communication appliance among five frail oldest old people living in a long-term care facility, which included field observations and usability and accessibility tests. Our findings suggest factors that facilitate and hinder the adoption of communication technologies, such as social, attitudinal, digital literacy, physical, and usability. We also discuss issues that arise in studying technology adoption by the oldest old, including usability and accessibility testing, and suggest solutions that may be helpful to HCI researchers working with this population.

Sighted individuals often develop significant knowledge about their environment through what they can visually observe. In contrast, individuals who are visually impaired mostly acquire such knowledge about their environment through information that is explicitly related to them. This paper examines the practices that visually impaired individuals use to learn about their environments and the associated challenges. In the first of our two studies, we uncover four types of information needed to master and navigate the environment. We detail how individuals' context impacts their ability to learn this information, and outline requirements for independent spatial learning. In a second study, we explore how individuals learn about places and activities in their environment. Our findings show that users not only learn information to satisfy their immediate needs, but also to enable future opportunities -- something existing technologies do not fully support. From these findings, we discuss future research and design opportunities to assist the visually impaired in independent spatial learning.