Bring Environments to People - A Case Study of Virtual Tours in Accessibility Assessment for People with Limited Mobility

Digitization techniques of environments make it possible to remotely render the experience of visiting these environments for people with limited mobility, creating new opportunities and challenges. Examples of such experiences center around the increasingly popular term "Virtual Tours" which allows users to access the digital replicas of physical environments. In virtual tours, a wheelchair user can "tour" historical sites for an educational experience, view Airbnb rooms and workplaces to plan their physical visits, and even inspect an aircraft to check out the legroom for making better decisions and preparations for their visits. In this research, we conducted the first case study with users with limited mobility on their uses of virtual tours to assess the accessibility of physical environments. The study results established benchmarks and uncovered benefits and caveats, creating a foothold for further studies as well as an outlook for features of future virtual tour systems to facilitate remote accessibility assessment.