Oculus Developer Forum - Accessibility Development

Hi all!

It's awesome that Oculus has created Accessibility VRCs. It might not seem enough to cover the wide spectrum of accessibility, but it's actually a big deal and will increase accessibility for many players. I'm currently acting as a witness expert in a lawsuit by a deaf player against a VR Games Platform (not Oculus, ofc) because they don't include captions, which makes it impossible for this person to play the games. 

I wrote my Ph.D. on accessible subtitles for VR content (https://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/670322#page=1). Not specifically for video games, but for 360-degree video content. Still, the same UX design principles can be applied, although you have more freedom in video games. According to our research and user testing, most users prefer subtitles located in front of you and follow you if you move around. It's what Oculus calls "head-locked," meaning they move as the user’s head moves in their guidelines: https://developer.oculus.com/learn/design-accessible-vr-captions/

Oculus recommends using both head-locked and fixed position subtitles: "It is also important to explore options for movement such as whether the subtitles are head-locked, meaning they move as the user’s head moves, or whether they are locked in space, meaning they stay in a fixed location. We recommend a combination of both. When subtitles are locked in space, they can be used to focus the user’s attention."

However, are fixed subtitles fair to players with hearing loss? In theory, they are at a disadvantage because they are forced to stay in a position to read the subtitles while hearing participants can look around if they want to. I think from a UI design is nice, but from a UX not so sure. We would need to gather more feedback from end-users to be sure. I really like the implementation of the subtitles that appear in the explanatory video by Mari: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFVPMYDO_OE&t=6s

Thank you for all your efforts in making games more accessible!

Belén