Making interaction with virtual reality accessible: rendering and guiding methods for subtitles

Accessibility in immersive media is a relevant research topic, still in its infancy. This article explores the appropriateness of two rendering modes (fixed-positioned and always-visible) and two guiding methods (arrows and auto-positioning) for subtitles in 360° video. All considered conditions have been implemented and integrated in an end-to-end platform (from production to consumption) for their validation and evaluation. A pilot study with end users has been conducted with the goals of determining the preferred options by users, the options that result in a higher presence, and of gathering extra valuable feedback from the end users. The obtained results reflect that, for the considered 360° content types, always-visible subtitles were more preferred by end users and received better results in the presence questionnaire than the fixed-positioned subtitles. Regarding guiding methods, participants preferred arrows over auto-positioning because arrows were considered more intuitive and easier to follow and reported better results in the presence questionnaire.