At the beginning of September 2023, the AutARK team, along with a student, traveled to Rapperswil on Lake Zurich (Switzerland) for one of the largest HCI conferences in the German-speaking region. This year’s conference, held September 3-6 under the theme “Building Bridges,” is where AutARK organized the “Workshop on Designing Accessible Extended Reality: An Opportunity for Neurodivergent People.” With this workshop, we want to draw attention to the needs and requirements, as well as the potential of assistive technologies for neurodivergent people, in the scientific discourse and drive mutual exchange of experiences.
The interest in the 3.5 hour workshop was very high, with over 20 participants. On one hand, the potentials and opportunities of XR applications for different target groups as well as current research were discussed. On the other hand, together with the participants, we looked at what accessibility requirements need to be met by XR applications. After a short input that gave an overview of the topic and current research, there were selected speeches that presented different application scenarios. Subsequently, challenges, accessibility, target groups and research gaps were identified for three selected scenarios in working groups. The results of the workshop were documented collaboratively in a Miro board. The results will be summarized and published on our website under “Research/Results”.
Impressions
