BlueVR: Design and Evaluation of a Virtual Reality Serious Game for Promoting Understanding towards People with Color Vision Deficiency

• Published in: Proceedings of the ACM on human-computer interaction 2023-09, Vol.7 (CHI PLAY), p.289-318, Article 385
• Main Authors: You, Ruoxin, Zhou, Yihao, Zheng, Weicheng, Zuo, Yiran, Barrera Machuca, Mayra Donaji, Tong, Xin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Applied computing; Computer games; Human computer interaction (HCI); Human-centered computing
• ISSN: 2573-0142; 2573-0142
• DOI: 10.1145/3611031

People with color vision deficiency (CVD) often encounter color-related challenges in their daily life, which are difficult for those with non-CVD to comprehend fully. Therefore, we designed a Virtual Reality (VR) serious game, BlueVR, to simulate challenging scenarios encountered by people with CVD and facilitate understanding from people with non-CVD. 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. 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.