Audio Personalisation for Accessible Augmented Reality Narratives

Augmented Reality (AR) is rapidly growing across a diverse range of uses. Along with other Extended Reality (XR) technologies, it has the potential to not only make the world more accessible but to provide new and unique opportunities for impaired users. This will not happen accidentally but requires greater thought and development with impaired users central to decision making.

This work explores whether creative and personalisable audio practices can be used to develop mobile-based AR content which is accessible to Visually Impaired (VI) users and includes them in enjoyable, immersive ways.

It begins by assessing the accessibility of current AR applications (apps). Despite developments in the use of AR to make the world more accessible, most mobile AR content does not take access needs into account. 37 AR apps were tested against a rubric of features with few found to be accessible. In Study 1, 8 VI participants validated these results by evaluating a subset of these apps.

This work then tests the efficacy of accessibility strategies centred upon two concepts. First, using well-designed audio creatively to include and immerse users in meaningful and enjoyable ways. Second, allowing users to personalise experiences to suit their needs. To this end, a bespoke narrative AR app was developed, with accessibility features initially equivalent to those in Study 1. In Study 2, 6 VI participants and 5 content creators displayed positivity towards the strategies and suggested ideas for their implementation. Based on this, the app was updated to include enhanced audio accessibility features. These were evaluated in Study 3 by 12 VI participants and 3 content creators. The results demonstrate positivity towards the strategies’ potential to provide an enjoyable, immersive experience. However, they underline how difficult AR is for VI users, highlighting fundamental challenges which need addressing before such strategies can be applied.