Virtual reality’s rise from a gaming tool to an engaging accessibility gateway is expanding the frontiers of inclusivity and opening up a playground to revolutionise how consumers heal, learn and work seamlessly between different realms.
Drivers: what’s happening
As Covid-19 was in full swing, those digital solutions helping to keep us connected felt like a warm embrace. The rapidly expanding virtual reality (VR) sector emerged from this digital shift, promising to enhance our remote experiences by recreating aspects of the real world we once took for granted. Once primarily associated with the realm of video games, the global lockdown catapulted VR into a new light, recasting it as a critical tool to unlock previously inaccessible environments.
With one in four US adults living with some type of disability, according to the Centers for Disease Content and Prevention, innovators in VR have found new ways to use the existing tech to overcome the day-to-day lack of accessible design.
Founded in 2019, XR Access is a community committed to making virtual, augmented and mixed reality (XR) accessible to people with disabilities. ‘These [VR] technologies can transform all kinds of data into accessible formats,’ Dylan Fox, director of operations at XR Access, tells LS:N Global. ‘Finding a cohesive way to do that in the real world, not just on screens, will enable people who have been excluded from a lot of real-world stuff to take part in it finally. I think that’s really exciting.’
Developments in VR are expanding the frontiers of inclusivity and opening up a playground to revolutionise how consumers heal, learn and work seamlessly between different realms.
