Publication

Evaluating Immersive VR Story Scene Design for Autistic Children Through Expert Perspective

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Abstract:

It is well accepted that the lack of design guidelines for virtual reality (VR) experiences for autistic children is limiting VR as a support or educational tool. Autistic children may have unique sensory and cognitive needs making typically designed VR applications difficult to experience and tolerate. To better understand factors that should be considered within this context, this paper presents the results of an expert evaluation of a VR application that was developed to introduce the concept of sharing. Six experts working in the field of autism were invited to take part in an experimental evaluation of an immersive VR social story application. The evaluation methods included questionnaires (open-ended) and some behavior analysis (e.g. eye tracking). The experts provided valuable feedback and detailed suggestions on the VR scene design, including lighting, subtitles, and animation design. By capturing the gaze data of the experts, it was found that there were significant differences in the duration of their gazes at different objects of interest in the VR environment. This provided valuable insights in terms of the VR production of social stories. In the future, we plan to expand these insights by incorporating additional stakeholder comments and behavior analysis. This ongoing research aims to develop more inclusive and effective VR design principles for applications for autistic children.