Portfolio of Md Touhidul Islam

Solution:

• We developed OpenAccAPI, an extensible accessibility API for 3D and VR apps that exposes UI and scene elements to screen readers.

• This enables accessibility features such as text-to-speech, UI text highlight, non-visual navigation, and cursor orientation feedback within existing games (see Fig. 6).

• We created a reference implementation of OpenAccAPI, i.e., a plugin for the popular Unity platform.

• We developed a method for injecting the plugin into any Unity game with just three clicks (see Fig. 7).

• We tested the game on 15 of the most popular Unity games on Steam (see Table 2).

Outcome:

• Most features worked flawlessly in 12 out of the 15 tested games (see Table 2).

• Small-scale studies with blindfolded users show that these features enable better spatial awareness and navigation capability in 3D and VR setups for blind users.

Impact:

• Introduced the first comprehensive accessibility API for 3D and VR apps targeting non-visual interaction.

• Potentially enabled BLV users to access, navigate, and use 3D and VR apps.

• Demonstrated the generalizability of the API by testing it on 15 popular Unity games.

• Reduced the effort for developers to implement accessible features in immersive environments.

• Laid groundwork for further research on accessible agent navigation and inclusive XR design.