Designing Bespoke VR Input Devices for People With Physical Disability

Virtual Reality (VR) promises to immerse users in virtual environments, but access barriers for people with mobility disability that are related to the body-centricity of the technology remain. While existing research has begun to develop software solutions, there is a lack of accessible VR input devices with dedicated interaction paradigms for people with mobility disability. In this work, we present two complementary Research through Design (RtD) case studies creating bespoke VR solutions: We designed unobtrusive VR gloves for a manual wheelchair user to allow complex interactions while simultaneously operating the wheelchair, as well as a VR gamepad with a personalized button layout as an alternative to conventional handheld input devices for a powered wheelchair user. Our results show the potential of employing RtD for experience-focused VR accessibility research. We provide recommendations for designing accessible VR input devices and interaction paradigms, and reflect on the challenge of achieving scalable, bespoke VR