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 · doi:10.1145/3663547.3746357
Summary
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 design), and experiential (comfort, safety, and quality of experience). The study combined semi-structured interviews with hands-on exploration of state-of-the-art VR hardware (Meta Quest 3) and applications including VRChat, Beat Saber, and Steam VR. Participants had diverse physical disabilities—five manual wheelchair users, six powered wheelchair users, two with lower limb prostheses, and others with upper and/or lower body impairments. Most had little to no prior VR experience. The research addresses a critical gap in VR accessibility research, which has predominantly focused on the physical layer (hardware barriers) in isolation, with limited attention to how digital design choices and experiential factors interact with physical accessibility. Through Qualitative Content Analysis, the authors developed categories spanning all three layers and examined how the application context—specifically VR gaming versus social VR—shapes accessibility concerns and user preferences. The study reveals that accessibility in VR cannot be understood by examining any single layer alone, as physical, digital, and experiential concerns are deeply intertwined.
Key findings
Key findings organized by layer: On the physical layer, participants confirmed known barriers such as difficulty putting on HMDs and manipulating controllers, but added nuance about temporal factors—ability to interact varied with daily form and fatigue, suggesting need for real-time adaptation of interaction paradigms. Hand tracking was seen as both promising (eliminating controller issues) and problematic (not recognizing limited range of motion). On the digital layer, participants valued realistic, truthful avatar representation of their disabilities but warned about stigma, wanting control over when and how disability is shown. Virtual world design should include disability-relevant features (elevators alongside stairs) rather than removing all barriers. Context matters significantly: in games, fantasy avatars and barrier-free worlds were acceptable; in social VR, realistic self-representation and realistic environments were strongly preferred. On the experiential layer, comfort was linked to the absence of pain rather than presence of pleasure—participants wanted non-exhausting interaction paradigms. Safety concerns spanned physical (collision risks during free-roam), digital (harassment, unwanted identity exposure), and transitional (difficulty readjusting to reality). The paper contributes five actionable recommendations: (R1) personalizable input across VR systems, (R2) accounting for temporal factors like fatigue, (R3) optional disability representation via avatar design, (R4) inclusive virtual world design, and (R5) resolving safety and comfort concerns to improve presence and immersion.
Relevance
This research makes an important contribution by framing VR accessibility as a multi-layered challenge that cannot be solved by addressing hardware alone. The three-layer framework (physical, digital, experiential) provides a useful structure for VR developers and accessibility practitioners to systematically evaluate their products. The finding that application context fundamentally shapes accessibility preferences is particularly actionable—a one-size-fits-all approach to VR accessibility will not work because gaming and social VR have different user expectations and priorities. The emphasis on temporal factors (daily form, fatigue) challenges the static view of disability that most VR applications currently assume, suggesting that adaptive interfaces responding to real-time changes in user capability could significantly improve accessibility. The paper also highlights an underexplored tension between disability representation and escapism in VR, with implications for avatar platform designers seeking to balance inclusive representation with user agency.
Tags: virtual reality · physical disability · VR accessibility · avatar design · interaction paradigms · social VR · VR gaming · embodiment · qualitative research