A Participatory Design Approach to Creating Echolocation-Enabled Virtual Environments

Abstract

As virtual environments—in the form of videogames and augmented and virtual reality experiences—become more popular, it is important to ensure that they are accessible to all. Previous research has identified echolocation as a useful interaction approach to enable people with visual impairment to access virtual environments. In this article, we further investigate the usefulness of echolocation to explore virtual environments. We follow a participatory design approach that comprised a focus group session coupled with two fast prototyping and evaluation iterations. During the focus group session, expert echolocators produced a series of seven design recommendations, of which we implemented and trialed four. Our trials revealed that the use of ambient sounds, the ability to place landmarks, directional control, and the ability to use pre-recorded mouth-clicks produced by expert echolocators improved the overall experience of our participants by facilitating the detection of openings and obstacles. The recommendations presented and evaluated in this article may help to develop virtual environments that support a broader range of users while recognising the value of the lived experience of people with disability as a source of knowledge.