Despite the growing adoption of freehand interactions in virtual reality (VR), the accessibility of default gesture implementations for individuals with upper limb motor impairments remains largely unexamined.To investigate unique accessibility challenges, we recruited adults with upper limb impairments (n=8) and a control group (n=16).We captured subjective and objective measures of impairment before participants performed common freehand interactions in VR including pinching, grasping, pressing, swiping and scrolling.Through observational analyses and semi-structured interviews, we identified usability barriers.Our findings reveal that even when gestures are functionally possible, restrictive implementations cause pain and fatigue for users with impairments.In particular, pinching -widely used in state-of-the-art systemsrelies heavily on the index finger, while both pinching and grasping are often defined by rigid performance thresholds.These factors exacerbate accessibility issues, especially when paired with the limitations of current tracking technologies.These insights highlight critical gaps in current design considerations and lay the foundation for developing more inclusive freehand interaction systems that reduce pain and better support a range of motor abilities.

Healthcare artificial intelligence (HAI) robots could alleviate the current healthcare provision crisis. However, their successful deployment rests on achieving and responsibly calibrating appropriate patient trust in them. Over two user studies, we systematically investigate trust formation in and usage intentions for HAI robots. We first investigate manipulations of visual appearance in a passive observation study without healthcare-specific situational context (n=87) and then in a realistic VR scenario depicting a medical consultation with a HAI robot (n=177) that introduces such situational context (diagnosis and treatment severity). Results show that within a healthcare context, a unique combination of (i) situational (diagnosis and treatment severity), (ii) robot (perceived competence) and (iii) user characteristics (personality and attitudes) determine trust and ultimately influence usage intentions for HAI robots. Furthermore, our results emphasize the absence of HAI visual appearance effects on trust. Our findings support and inform a human centred design approach of HAI robots.