jessie, Author at XR Access

Q: Exploring Barriers in XR | Jamie Knight + Lion

When: Wednesday, May 25th at 11am PT/2pm ET Where: Zoom. Please click this link to register. About the Talk XR and the metaverse introduces a whole new realm for users to explore; It brings new barriers and opportunities. The BBC has just published the XR barrier research project to identify some of the most common barriers. In this talk Jamie & Lion share their experiences leading the project and share insights in building XR experiences for audiences anew. About the Speaker Jamie + Lion are an autistic duo who focus on using tech to remove barriers and create positive change. Jamie spend 10 years with the BBC, working in engineering roles before joining and then leading the Digital Accessibility Team. Since leaving the BBC Jamie has been focusing on play and adventures. Working with a wide range of orgs to make cool things happen. All are welcome to attend the XR Access Speaker Series. Once you have registered via this link , a confirmation email with calendar information will be sent to you. Automated closed captions will be provided for this event, if you would like to request an ASL interpreter or any other accommodation, please contact Jessie at jgt43@cornell.edu by Monday, May 23.

Q: Making Virtual Reality More Accessible for Persons with Balance Impairments | Dr. John Quarles

When: Tuesday, June 21, 2022 at 12pm ET Where: Zoom. Please click this link to register. About the Talk Although consumer level virtual reality (VR) head mounted displays (HMDs) (e.g., HTC Vive) are becoming more prevalent today, these VR developers typically do not consider persons with disabilities, such as persons with balance impairments (e.g., persons with multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's, or stroke). Thus, many immersive VR applications, such as education, physical fitness, rehabilitation, and entertainment, are not accessible to users with balance impairments. To address this need, our research aims to use multimodal feedback techniques to improve balance in VR. In this talk, we will specifically discuss auditory cues to improve standing balance and gait in VR for persons with balance impairments. Results suggest that the proposed auditory techniques can improve balance and gait while in VR for all users, inclusive of users with or without balance impairments, and thus can improve the accessibility of VR overall. About the Speaker Dr. John Quarles is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at University of Texas at San Antonio. All are welcome to attend the XR Access Research Network's seminar series. Once you have registered via this link , a confirmation email with calendar information will be sent to you. Automated closed captions will be provided for this event, if you would like to request an ASL interpreter or any other accommodation, please contact Jessie at jgt43@cornell.edu by Thursday, June 16.

Q: Multimedia for Deaf Viewers | Dr. Raja Kushalnagar

When: Tuesday, May 17, 2022 at 12pm ET Where: Zoom. Please click this link to register. About the Talk Deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) people have relied on assistive and accessible technologies/services to consume or produce aural information. Some hard-of-hearing people rely on an assistive technology approach to enhance aural information for easier perception and understanding. Other hard of hearing and most deaf people rely on an accessible technology approach to transform the aural information into visual or tactile information for easier perception and understanding. We will briefly discuss the history of DHH assistive and accessible technology. We will then go through interactive examples of how deaf and hard-of-hearing people consume and produce information through assistive and accessible technologies. After the examples, we will discuss how the differences in aural, visual, and tactile modalities influence multimodal information consumption and production Finally, we will discuss the design and development of effective accessible computing solutions for multimodal information access. About the Speaker Dr. Raja Kushalnagar is a professor and the Director of the Information Technology program in the school of Science, Technology, Accessibility, Mathematics, and Public Health at Gallaudet University. All are welcome to attend the XR Access Research Network's seminar series. Once you have registered via this link , a confirmation email with calendar information will be sent to you. ASL interpreting and automated closed captions will be provided for this event.

Q: 2022 XR Access Symposium

Save the Date for the 2022 XR Access Symposium, June 9-10, 2022.

Q: Does VR Have an Accessibility Problem? | Dr. Mar Gonzalez-Franco

About the Talk In this talk we explore the special challenges of VR with regards to accessibility. In VR and more in general spatial computing, users find themselves entering the digital content through wearables, and interacting with content with their own body. This means that if they have any bodily limitation this limitation will carry on to VR. In some cases it might even mean they won’t be able to wear the headset. In this talk we also present some work done to deal with this challenge. About the Speaker Dr Mar Gonzalez-Franco is a Principal Researcher in the Extended Perception Interaction and Cognition team at Microsoft Research. [embed]https://youtu.be/WG06R3f2h-4[/embed]