Expanding Accessibility in Immersive Virtual Spaces: A Comprehensive Approach for All Disabilities

TL;DR

This paper advocates for expanding accessibility in immersive virtual spaces to ensure inclusivity for all disabilities, highlighting benefits, challenges, and overlooked harms in virtual environments.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive approach to improving accessibility in virtual spaces, emphasizing the need for inclusive design and addressing potential harms.

Findings

Virtual spaces increase accessibility for some disabled users.

Challenges remain in ensuring equitable access and usability.

Potential harms include exclusion and unintended negative impacts.

Abstract

In the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, many events and conferences hastily converted to a virtual format, and many commercial ventures promptly developed tools promising seamless transitions to virtual spaces. In particular, efforts to expand and monetize augmented and virtual reality environments increased. While these spaces increased accessibility for some, others were left behind. In 2024, many events returned to on-site venues, yet virtual spaces remain central in academic and research communities, particularly for disabled scholars. As such, in this paper, we advocate for continued virtual access and improved virtual spaces; we also identify some potentially overlooked harms in immersive and embodied virtual spaces.