Exploring the Accessibility of Social Virtual Reality for People with ADHD and Autism: Preliminary Insights

Social virtual reality (VR) has become one of the most popular forms of VR. However, despite years of research on how VR interventions can be useful as diagnostic or therapeutic tools for neurodivergent (ND) users, there has been little examination of how accessible social VR may be for such ND individuals. In this paper, we describe an ongoing user study with participants who self-identify with both autism and ADHD (AuDHD) and also self-identify with facing frequent challenges with social interaction. So far, we have recruited four AuDHD participants; we had each participant briefly explore a world on a popular commercial social VR platform and then reflect on this experience afterward in a longer interview section. Through this process, we uncovered various accessibility challenges in social VR, such as difficulties with navigating social norms or managing certain sensory inputs. We also noted ideas on potential accommodations, like a text-based prompt system that can suggest “appropriate” conversation responses. Our work outlines opportunities to improve the accessibility of social VR for an often-overlooked user group.