Metaverse Accessibility for Disability

Inspiration

People with visual impairments often have issues with absorbing most types of media. In a report by Booktrust, just 7% of books are accessible in designs that help the visually impaired and only 2% are in braille. In movie theatres, blind-accommodating sound depictions are more normal, yet OTT platforms like Netflix just give a quarter of its content in audio descriptive form.

Blend of virtual reality and augmented reality programming is inherently a visual medium. Users with visually impaired glasses usually complain about how uncomfortable VR headsets can be. Now, Meta claims that its next generation of mixed reality headsets will be more comfortable for glasses wearers. But then, will Metaverse ever be accessible to blind people?

3D-audio echo-location, audio descriptive menus, and Haptic Feedback are a few things that could ease the barrier. However, blind metaverse users will have to learn how to interact in a second world. As technology gets more complex, it gets more visual, and it gets less accessible for visually impaired persons.

Source: https://www.analyticsinsight.net/metaverse-is-the-future-will-it-help-disabled-people-live-better/

The important determinant of metaverse accessibility will be whether the core concept of universality translates quickly into the new technology. Universality helps define the ways in which measures undertaken to improve access for people with disabilities end up benefiting everyone.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/gusalexiou/2022/03/31/is-the-metaverse-likely-to-be-accessible-and-inclusive-of-people-with-disabilities/?sh=5e51002a4d20

How does a blind person use a touchscreen?

What it does

Sensory Enhancement

How we built it

For those who are blind, we can built technology using AI such as screen readers, braille displays, and speech recognition software. A screen reader is a program that analyzes the layout and content of a website and provides a text to speech translation.

Challenges we ran into

The UI and UX for the applications, such as:

What if a pop-up prevent the user to move forward?
How if the user cannot quickly locate what they want to read?

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Using Microsoft Azure to make the automatic bot, easy to use, and blind-user-friendly application. So, everyone can use technology in the future without barriers.