SoundModVR: Sound Modifications in Virtual Reality to Support People who are Deaf and Hard of Hearing

Previous VR sound accessibility work substituted sounds with visual or haptic output to increase VR accessibility for deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) people. However, deafness occurs on a spectrum, and many DHH people (e.g., those with partial hearing) can also benefit greatly from having more control over the audio instead of substituting it with another modality. In this paper, we explore the possibilities of modifying sounds in VR to support DHH people. To understand the best modification features for this goal, we designed and implemented 18 VR sound modification tools spanning four categories, including prioritizing sounds, modifying sound parameters, providing spatial assistance, and adding additional sounds. We evaluated our tools in five diverse VR scenarios with 10 DHH people, finding that our tool can improve DHH users’ VR experience, but could be further improved by providing more customization options and decreasing distraction. We then compiled a Unity toolkit from select tools and conducted a preliminary evaluation with six Unity VR developers. Findings show that our toolkit is easy to use and debug but could be enhanced through modularization and better documentation. We close by discussing further implications of sound modification in VR.