Accessibility issues with AR glasses: navigation
Class: UT Austin, INF 385T: Accessible User Experiences
Project Timeline: October 2021
Focus: Examining accessibility(A11y) Issues
Location: Austin, USA
Team: Swapnil Shinde & Calvin Leung — Accessibility Research & Design
Background
In October 2021, social media giant Facebook changed its name to “Meta” as part of its rebrand, the company's new focus on developing “the metaverse.” As Mark Zuckerberg envisions metaverse to be a place where we would be able to hang out, play games with friends, work, create, and more. We began to wonder what obstacles it may have that prevent it from being a reality in 2021.
Furthermore, we’ve seen a slew of corporations, from Microsoft to Apple, bet heavily on AR/VR becoming the next big thing. These firms and their goods have been in development for over a decade, but as we all know, they haven’t had as much success as mobile phones in persuading consumers to adopt them.
Looking at the market, we feel that AR/VR is not as widely accepted as the infamous mobile phone because it is not as accessible. And, in order to focus our efforts, we decided to research the usage of augmented reality to traverse indoor spaces.
What’s AR & Who’s Working on it?
Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive experience where the physical world is enhanced by computer-generated perceptual information. Information can come through multiple sensory modalities, including visual, auditory, haptic, somatosensory, and olfactory.
Companies at the forefront of AR:
- Microsoft: Hololens 2
- Magic Leap: Magic Leap 1
- Brainlab: Surgery Solutions
- Snap Inc: 4th Gen. Spectacles
- Facebook: Project Aria
- Apple: Apple Glasses (Rumored)
Exploring The Issues
To have a better knowledge of our problem area, we looked at freshman UT students who were unfamiliar with the university libraries and needed assistance finding their designated study places. Temporary solutions include looking up instructions on interactive kiosk maps, recalling previous visits (if applicable), or using a smartphone map substitute (if available).
Ar glasses seem to be a great fit in this scenario. But if AR glasses are utilized to aid interior navigation, UX designers must consider accessible and inclusive design issues while developing new spatial computing user interfaces.
We identified a few challenges in bringing AR glasses to consumers:
- Price is currently inaccessible to consumers: AR headsets are prohibitively expensive and currently targets developers and enterprise businesses.
- Technology is still evolving: Current technology underwhelms in graphical intensity. Battery life does not currently sustain everyday use.
- Ergonomics need to support daily use (Comfort): Consumer hardware currently compromises features to achieve size and weight similar to corrective lenses. Headsets are currently too restrictive with eye box size and field of view (FOV). A 114° horizontal FOV needs to be achieved to support base and peripheral vision. Restrictive optics may cause blurriness, motion latency, and restrictive vision.
There were some A11y Issues that we encountered during our preliminary analysis as well. We analyzed situations where AR glasses have the potential to fail all four Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) success areas:
- Perceivable: No accessibility settings accommodating the color-blind (red-green, blue-yellow, complete color blindness).
- Operable: No voice command or wrist motion alternatives to traditional gesture control.
- Understandable: No skeleton UI or alt-text metadata alternatives when AR renderings are too slow to load (latency, software, or hardware issues).
- Robust: No wearable (e.g. headphones) or screen reader connectivity to command and understand AR information.
We understood that everyone stands to benefit from using multiple modalities to re-learn new user interface affordances in spatial computing and controlling a brand new form factor. People with temporary disabilities and situational limitations also stand to benefit from AR assisting routine or spontaneous challenges in daily life.
Who It Affects
To further understand the potential issues and who it affects we made a comprehensive list of various issues faced by users with disabilities as well as for those suffering from situational limitations.
To understand the issue further, we made use of a journey map depicting a user using AR glasses to navigate a library.
Challenges Faced By UX Teams
Once we understood the issues our users could face, we made a list of obstacles UX Teams could experience while dealing with accessibility in designing, creating, or writing for AR glasses. Here are some of the major challenges that we analyzed.
UX Designers
- Need to ensure lowered graphical load has intuitive affordances for users with learning disabilities.
- Colorblind users need color settings for AR renderings.
- Gesture alternatives for users with limited motion direction or finger contracture.
UX Researchers
- Users are re-learning user interface affordances for spatial computing.
- Research teams may find limitations when recruiting disabled users.
- AR intercept and true intent surveys may overwhelm cognitively-disabled users.
Content Designers
- Content needs to account for AR headsets’ narrow FOV.
- Critical messaging needs to be highly visible without disrupting central vision.
- Strong understanding of how AR affordances can be stylized to support multiple sensory modalities.
Front End Developers
- Every AR rendering needs an alternative skeleton UI for high latency moments.
- AR renderings responsive to users’ environment — clutter color, brightness, movement.
- Ensure code has no junk, is screen-reader accessible (readable alt-text).
What Can Be Done?
To conclude, we went on to suggest potential solutions that can be used to make things more accessible. These are some points that can be considered by UX teams while making decisions in the AR space.
- Gesture controls — motion-only alternatives — Gesture control leverages both motion direction and finger contractures. Provide motion-only alternatives for users with limited finger function via bands or one ring.
- Suggested routes — accessibility settings — Provide accessibility settings for indoor AR navigation. Suggested routes should have accessible alternatives for stairs, elevation, crowd density, and walkway width.
- Stair navigation — AR navigation — To assist users with vision impairments, leverage AR glasses to 1) highlight steps vs. end of stairs and 2) provide glow visualizations to enhance rail detection.
- Participation Requirements — Peripheral Notice — AR navigation should flag indoor participation requirements or incoming objects via notifications in users’ upper or lower peripheral vision.
