We designed a Virtual Reality (VR) serious game, BlueVR, to simulate challenging scenarios encountered by people with Color Vision Deficiency (CVD) and facilitate understanding from people with non-CVD. This research contributes valuable insights into the mechanisms underlying the effectiveness of VR serious games in promoting understanding and design implications for future game development.
People with color vision deficiency (CVD) often encounter color-related challenges in their daily lives, which are difficult for those with non-CVD to comprehend fully. We conducted an empirical study with thirty participants with non-CVD and six participants with CVD to evaluate the opportunities and challenges of BlueVR. Our findings suggest that BlueVR increased people with non-CVD’s understanding, awareness, and perspective-taking abilities towards people with CVD. Moreover, interviews with participants with CVD revealed that BlueVR accurately depicts their real-life discomforts and meets their expectations to improve potential social awareness.
Color vision deficiency (CVD) is a common genetic condition that affects how people perceive and distinguish colors. This condition affects their ability to perceive and distinguish colors, impacting color-related tasks. What is often neglected, however, is that those without CVD tend to have a limited or even incorrect understanding of the condition. Common misconceptions include the belief that all individuals with CVD experience the same level of severity and are incapable of performing daily tasks like recognizing traffic light signals. This social stigma affects people with CVD, impacting their career opportunities and even mental health.
Previous research has explored the use of VR applications and games to simulate impaired color vision for people with non-CVD since VR can provide powerful immersive, and embodied experiences. While the potential benefits of VR and gamification in improving understanding and empathy, more comprehensive studies are needed to examine the underlying mechanisms. This research aims to investigate how to design VR simulation games that enable people with non-CVD to embody the perspectives of people with CVD.
Players will enter the first scene -- a crossroad – with a protanopia color-deficient vision. A background story would be provided when they were waiting for the traffic light. Players will enter the next stage by crossing the road following the NPC at the right time.
In this stage, players will enter the Convenience Store and be asked to pick up the required goods from three full shelves. Only the goods on the shopping list provided can score, and buying other unrelated goods would lead to failure.
Players will be presented with the same convenience store scene as before but in normal vision. They will be asked to help people with CVD by re-designing the store elements. By clicking the buttons on some special user interfaces, players can change the price tags and packages in a CVD-friendly style.
After players finished the modification, they will turn back to protanopia vision and do another shopping task to experience what they have changed.
R You, Y Zhou, W Zheng, Y Zuo, MD Barrera Machuca, X Tong. 2023.
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 7 (CHI PLAY), 289-318
We thank Duke Kunshan University (DKU) for funding this research (00AKUG0086 and 22KCNID012) and DKU’s summer research scholar (SRS) program for supporting Weicheng Zheng in this project. We would like to acknowledge the contributions of our study participants, including people with color vision deficiency.
