Speaking Sessions

These will be presented on the main stage and broadcast online.

June 15th

The Guide Has Your Back: Exploring How Sighted Guides Can Enhance Accessibility in Social Virtual Reality for Blind and Low Vision People

Jazmin Collins and Crescentia Jung

An overview of a research study that explored the potential of sighted guides in virtual reality as a versatile assistive technology for blind and low vision users. We will present on early findings from this study, including the broad design space for virtual guides that it opens.

Empowering the Workforce through Accessible XR

Liz Hyman (moderator), Joel Ward, Corinne Weible, Christian Vogler

Join us for an engaging discussion on XR Accessibility in the workforce, where experts from various fields will explore the importance of creating inclusive immersive experiences to enhance professional settings and promote professional equity. During the session, the panelists will delve into inclusive design principles, understanding the importance of accessibility in XR, and share case studies of how organizations are implementing accessible XR solutions in the workforce. Join us to explore the transformative potential of XR technologies in creating a more accessible and inclusive workplace for all.

The Virtual Experience Research Accelerator (VERA)

Greg Welch (moderator), Christine Hemphill, Tabitha Peck, and Jonathan Beever

Supported by five collaborative grants from the National Science Foundation, the Virtual Experience Research Accelerator (VERA) project will develop and operate CISE community research infrastructure in the form of a human-machine system for carrying out human subjects research related to extended reality (XR), including Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality. This panel primarily seeks to gather wisdom, perspectives, and concrete ideas from the XR Access community related to multiple components of VERA, to help us make all aspects as accessible as we can, from the very beginning.

Loud and Clear: Improving Accessibility for Low Vision Players in Cosmonious High

Jazmin Cano, Peter Galbraith

In this session Owlchemy Labs’ Accessibility Product Manager Jazmin Cano and Senior Accessibility Engineer Peter Galbraith will describe the approach they took adding blind and low vision accessibility to Owlchemy Labs’ most recently released game, Cosmonious High. They will share what they learned throughout this process, from early research and development to the feedback received after release.  Audience members will gain an understanding of what is required to create helpful accessibility features for complex and immersive virtual environments.

June 16th

SocialSense XR: Making the Invisible Visible

Dylan Fox, Shiri Azenkot, Andrea Won, Charles La Pierre, Sean Dougherty

Interpersonal communication is not accessible in extended reality (XR) for blind and low vision people. In this NSF-funded project, Cornell Tech, Benetech, and Lighthouse for the Blind have teamed up to design a solution. SocialSense XR makes nonverbal communications and documents perceivable using audio and haptic cues, focusing on virtual reality workplace scenarios.

Building An Accessible & Inclusive Metaverse

Jamie Bykov-Brett

Web 1 & 2 products, services have largely been designed around people who are already most able to participate. So much so that we have created inaccessibility and inequality because there hasn’t been done enough to anticipate the attitudinal, financial, social, enablement, or policy barriers that marginalized groups face.  This presentation aims to give you useful frameworks, models and perspectives that should be considered throughout the development of metaverse and Web3 in the pursuit of a kinder, ethical, more inclusive, digitally-enabled future.

Annotated Lip Reading for Augmented Educational Systems

Hrishikesh (Hrishi) Dilip Mulay

This project focuses on the emerging technologies (Augmented and Virtual Reality – AR/VR) to identify the impact of an Automated Lip Reading System within XR Educational Systems. It considers embedding a 3D avatar within an augmented educational system, with the capacity of semi-supervised learning, to generate and manipulate fabricated data from the real input data. The aim is to identify how AR or VR (as an alternative) can assist with the collection of data through an immersive environment.

Multidimensional computing accessibility in the age of XR and AI

Liv Erickson

The interplay between XR technologies and AI is challenging us to think about new ways to engage with, understand, and design systems that utilize massive amounts of information across many dimensions. New interfaces and spatial computing paradigms will require us to broaden our tool sets for developing new applications and presenting information in flexible, dynamic ways. In this talk, Liv will present several case studies that highlight the dynamic nature of application development today to encourage discussion and generate possible solutions to working with many dimensions and forms of information across increasingly complex interfaces.

Vision Accessibility with AR+AI Tools

Sean Dougherty, Jeffrey Colon

Explore the leading AR and AI-based tools that support blind and low vision accessibility on mobile devices, and better understand how the features and use cases for these tools can help users increase access to visual information.

Breakout Sessions

These breakout sessions will enable conference attendees to participate directly in conversations about how to improve XR accessibility. They will not be broadcast due to technological limitations of the event space; however, summaries will be made available in the Symposium Report.

Each breakout slot will be 50 minutes. Attendees can choose one breakout from session A and one from session B to attend. Breakouts are on June 15th.

Breakout Session A

• 360° Video Descriptions – Lucy Jiang
• Captions – Michael Cooper
• Spatial Computing & Data – Liv Erickson
• Policy – Elizabeth Hyman
• Customization – Jamie Bykov-Brett

Breakout Session B

• User Research – Greg Welch
• Standards – Will Schell
• Exploring Accessible VR for Blind Users – Sean Dougherty, Jeffrey Colon
• Inclusive Avatars – Ria Gualano
• Accessible Career Development – Mark Steelman