Literature Reviews

Reviewed research papers, articles, and publications relevant to digital accessibility.

• Auto-Generating Personas from User Reviews in VR App Stores

  Yi Wang, Kexin Cheng, Xiao Liu, Chetan Arora, John Grundy, Thuong Hoang, Henry Been-Lirn Duh (2026) — Extended Abstracts of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA ’26)

  This CHI 2026 Extended Abstract reports on an auto-generated persona system developed to help undergraduate students surface accessibility requirements in virtual reality design projects. The authors argue that personas are well-established in user-c…

  • virtual reality
  • VR accessibility
  • personas
  • requirements engineering
  • large language models
  • retrieval-augmented generation
  • accessibility education
  • user-centered design
  • empathy

• Two-In-One: A Design Space for Mapping Unimanual Input into Bimanual Interactions in VR for Users with Limited Movement

  Momona Yamagami, Sasa Junuzovic, Mar Gonzalez-Franco, Eyal Ofek, Edward Cutrell, John R. Porter, Andrew D. Wilson, Martez E. Mott (2022) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This paper addresses a significant accessibility barrier in virtual reality: the requirement to use two motion controllers simultaneously for bimanual interactions. Many VR applications assume users can hold and manipulate two controllers, excluding …

  • virtual reality
  • VR accessibility
  • motor impairment
  • input techniques
  • bimanual interaction
  • game accessibility
  • design space
  • one-handed interaction

• Exploring the SoundVizVR Plugin in the Development of Sound-Accessible Virtual Reality Games: Insights from Game Developers and Players

  Yuxin Li, Roshan Lalintha Peiris (2024) — Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (CSCW)

  This paper presents SoundVizVR, a Unity plugin designed to make virtual reality games accessible to deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) users by visualizing in-game sounds. The research addresses a significant gap in VR accessibility—while visual content …

  • VR accessibility
  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • sound visualization
  • game development
  • assistive technology
  • Unity plugin

• Nearmi: A Framework for Designing Point of Interest Techniques for VR Users with Limited Mobility

  Rachel Franz, Samantha Hornback, Diva Jayasinghe, Jolie Auricchio, John Porter III, John Googleddy, Kristen Shinohara (2021) — ASSETS '21: The 23rd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

  Virtual reality presents significant accessibility barriers for people with limited mobility, yet relatively little research has addressed how to make VR navigation and exploration usable for this population. Franz et al. introduce Nearmi, a design f…

  • virtual reality
  • VR accessibility
  • limited mobility
  • motor impairments
  • point of interest
  • interaction design
  • customization
  • assistive technology

• Comparing Locomotion Techniques in Virtual Reality for People with Upper-Body Motor Impairments

  Rachel L. Franz, Jinghan Yu, Jacob O. Wobbrock (2023) — Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '23)

  This paper presents the first empirical study comparing the accessibility of virtual reality locomotion techniques — methods for navigating virtual environments — for people with upper-body motor impairments. Despite over 100 distinct locomotion tech…

  • virtual reality
  • locomotion
  • motor impairments
  • VR accessibility
  • interaction techniques
  • personalization
  • simulator sickness
  • user study

• Understanding Accessibility for Physically Disabled Users in VR: Interplay of Physical, Digital, and Experiential Layers

  Marvin Wolf, Kathrin Gerling, Dmitry Alexandrovsky, Merlin Steven Opp, Jan Ole Rixen (2025) — ASSETS 2025: 27th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

  This paper presents a qualitative study with 16 physically disabled participants exploring how they engage with Virtual Reality across three interconnected layers: physical (hardware and interaction paradigms), digital (avatars and virtual world desi…

  • virtual reality
  • physical disability
  • VR accessibility
  • avatar design
  • interaction paradigms
  • social VR
  • VR gaming
  • embodiment
  • qualitative research