A.

High-Fidelity Prototype:

Prototypes:

- Figma File: Located on website

- Figma Link (In case file doesn’t work):

https://www.figma.com/file/ckUyvLXBXST71BpO9jIvYa/User-Story-Prototypes?type=d
esign&node-id=1%3A3&t=8Xlgv3PDaREASBtA-1

Extended Descriptions:
- User story: As a student with fine motor impairments, I want to use a VR headset without
the use of my hands so that I can learn and interact with the educational content in a
virtual environment.
- To address this, the student will be able to enable voice control to maneuver
around the learning environment so they are not inhibited by motor impairments.
Following the industry standard for voice control, a set verbal command, in our
case “Hey Athena” will activate the voice control system. A symbol will be
displayed once the setting has been activated to indicate to the user that it is ready
to accept a voice command, and will post a response to the screen to confirm the
action just performed.
- User story: As a visually-impaired student, I want to adjust the display to accommodate
my specific disability instead of choosing from an existing small category of presets so
that I can view the educational contents in a VR setting.
- To address this problem, the student will be able to pick from a wide variety of
presets that fits their visual impairment needs. In our design, users can choose
their color setting from distinct lists of “Red-Green” and “Blue-Yellow”
adjustments. This benefits students as it allows them to find their specific color
pairing and enable it, letting the student view the VR environment with as clear
visuals as possible. This will not only help them to navigate the environment, but
also allow them to better differentiate between objects that may blend together or
appear the same color with their specific color blindness. The image included on
the right side of the page allows the student to view a picture example of what
their screen will look with a specific color setting enabled. This allows them to try
the different options to find which one benefits them the most before applying it
to the learning environment.

Video Demos: Located on website

B. Testing Protocol:

Research Question:

- Does implementing a universal set of guidelines effectively improve accessibility and

ease of use for students with physical and visual impairments in an educational
environment?

Methodology:

- Based on our research question, we would use a mixed methods approach by conducting
surveys and participant observation for our tests. Observations are best for collecting
quantitative data (how much students improved numerically compared to non-impaired
students), while surveys can demonstrate improvement of user experience (opinions and
thoughts of students after using the VR headset… Was it easy or challenging to use, Were
there any struggle or implementations that may have caused a user drop off).

Evidence: https://deakin.libguides.com/qualitative-study-designs/surveys

Testing Procedure:

- For the quantitative analysis portion of testing, students without any known disabilities
will be asked to perform a task within the VR system without any of the proposed
accessibility modifications. This group would be used as the control group. This task
would be representative of a function essential to successfully navigating a VR setting.
This task would be fairly simple, and would require the user to virtually navigate to a
colored flag that is in the distance from the start screen. Spotting the flag as well as
navigating to it present increased difficulty for students with visual and physical
impairments, and the supervised task completion would seek to observe if the added
functionality eased use for users with limited capabilities. For each of the proposed
guidelines, students with a given impairment would be asked to perform the task without
any modifications followed by repeating that task with a given modified feature
pertaining to their impairment. During each test, the time on task (time used to complete
the given task) and task completion (if the user was able to successfully complete the task
or not) would be measured and immediately following, a survey would be conducted to
evaluate the user’s experience of using the system to complete the task. The feedback will
inquire about the user’s comfortability in comprehending the information. This mixed
methods approach would not only allow for the study to obtain data pertaining to if the
 feature has an effect on completion or time on task, but on the participant’s experience
regarding the ease of using that feature as well. The survey would include the following
questions, with 6 allowed responses: Completely Disagree, Somewhat Disagree, Neither
Agree nor Disagree, Somewhat Agree, and Completely Agree, or N/A, for cases such as
the control group if no setting adjustment was needed.

Question Completely Somewhat Neither Somewhat Completely N/A

Disagree Disagree Agree Agree Agree
Nor
Disagree

1. I was able to differentiate between items ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯

on the screen easily.

2. This task was easy to complete. ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯

3. I was able to find the settings I needed ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯

easily.

4. I would use this VR system again. ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯

5. It was easy to move within the VR ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯

environment.

6. It was frustrating to complete the task. ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯

7. The controls required to complete the ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯

task felt easy to use.

Evidence: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5602001/

Informed Consent:

- Following standard informed consent principles, we will provide a warning

acknowledgement that describes how all of the responses and information that the user
provides will be used for research and study purposes. Due to the nature of this study, a
significant number of subjects of this study would be minors, and as such special
considerations to consent must be applied. The study would follow standard informed
consent guidelines for participants that are legal adults, but for minors would follow
policies regarding informed parental consent and child assent. The addition of parental
consent entails that one or both parents or a guardian must be provided with the
information ordinarily required for informed consent, so that they may accurately decide
whether to allow the child to participate. Further, children capable of assent must also
express willingness to participate. The information given to the minor participants must
also be reflective of that of informed consent if the participant demonstrates the
understanding capacity close to that of an adult.

Evidence: https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulations-and-policy/guidance/faq/children-research/index.html
Data Collection & Organization:

- The data will be organized by the user’s capabilities. For instance users will be separated
into those with no impairments, motor impairments, visual impairments, and auditory
impairments. Among each of these target groups, user responses will be further
categorized into “Effective” or “Ineffective” in regards to whether VR helped with their
learning.

Data Analysis:

- Using the results from our surveys, we can qualitatively analyze whether user experience
improved among impaired users improved with the addition of the features outlined in
the proposed guideline, as well as compare that to the attitudes from the control group.
By comparing experience with the control group, we can analyze if the experience of
users with physical or vision impairments is overall worse than that of those without.
With the quantitative data gathered from the task supervision portion of the research, the
resultant data can be used to evaluate how the added features affected the user’s
performance. Results such as decreased time on task and a higher rate of completion
would indicate that the addition of accessibility tools allow for more successful use of VR
systems among the experiment group. Further, the results from the experiment group may
be compared to those in the control group. From there, the differences between the two
groups can be analyzed, looking at if the additional features result in the experimental
group’s performance being closer to that of the control group. After this data has been
gathered from all the users who have participated in the surveys and interviews, we can
look at the distribution of responses and determine whether or not the implementation of
the universal features proposed by the guidelines has helped the overall target population
(students with impairments) use VR systems effectively.

Pandemic Testing:

- Surveys and participant observation can be conducted virtually over Zoom or with
another video conferencing tool. A VR headset would be delivered to the participants.
When going through the testing procedures, the VR screen will be shared to the meeting
so that the observers can track valuable data. Surveys would be conducted like a normal
conference call or through a survey form located on a study website.

Evidence: https://www.austenriggs.org/news/zooming-in-the-pandemic