Workplace VR: Social Training system for people with autism
Research Project (2020-2023)
Autistic individuals struggle with work-related social communication skills. We implement context-specific scenarios in VR and conduct user interviews to design an inclusive, collaborative feedback interface.
My Role: UI/UX Designer, Researcher
Concept
This study aims to uncover design spaces in VR where autistic people and members of their support networks can utilise VR technology to enhance the work experiences of autistic individuals. To investigate this idea, we created a video prototype that presents a VR system concept called Workplace Playbook VR. The prototype presents Workplace Playbook VR with a story of an autistic individual who virtually experiences job-related social situations while wearing a head-mounted VR device.
The design process and rationale of the Workplace Playbook VR concept focus on two components:
(1) simulated scenario experiences in the workplace context targeting autistic individuals as primary users and
(2) the data-driven reflection based on the collected behavioural and physiological data of autistic people during the VR experience.
In the data-driven reflection, autistic people can discuss their practised behaviours with members of their support network.
(1) simulated scenario experiences in the workplace context targeting autistic individuals as primary users and
(2) the data-driven reflection based on the collected behavioural and physiological data of autistic people during the VR experience.
In the data-driven reflection, autistic people can discuss their practised behaviours with members of their support network.
System Design
We designed and implemented WorkplaceVR, an immersive VR-based system that offers experiences of work-related social situations and data-driven reflection of users’ behavioural and physiological responses.
The overall reflection interface (Fig. 1) offers a chance to investigate the VR experience of the primary user (i.e., an autistic individual) with members of their support network. We presented the visualised data with a video player that replays the user’s VR experience to better support users in making sense of the behavioural and physiological data by watching the synced video together.
Fig 1. The Overall reflection interface: The upper-right corner of the reflection interface contains a comprehensive assessment based on behavioural and physiological data. The bottom-right corner contains a virtual coach who helps with the reflection process. The coach provides messages based on the video played through the interface. For example, the coach guides users on which social communication skills were noted in the scenario and which specific skills can be further discussed with others.
Study Design
Study 1: Iterative Design Approach
To better elicit feedback on how the Workplace Playbook VR concept may or may fail to address the needs of autistic people and their support networks, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 28 participants in South Korea. We elicited feedback on the video prototype through semi-structured interviews with the three participant groups: autistic individuals, family members and professionals.
(Publications: PACM/CSCW 22', VRST 22')
Fig 2: Our participants practised their social skills in a simulated café environment in two basic-level and two advanced-level scenarios. Findings highlight that autistic participants were actively engaged in WorkplaceVR: placing their hands on the physical desk where the virtual counter was (top) and turning to face the virtual manager when conversing (bottom)
Study 2: User Study
We evaluated WorkplaceVR by conducting user study with fourteen autistic and eight neurotypical young adults.
Our findings highlight that the experiences of successfully completing the VR scenarios led to an increase in autistic people's sense of self-efficacy. Furthermore, data-driven reflection helped autistic participants to gain self-understanding and also to practise advocating for themselves.
(Work-in-progress paper for CSCW 23')
Fig 3: Our study procedure included three stages: (1) Pre-experiment, (2) VR experiment, and (3) Post-experiment reflection phase
Conclusion
• Our work contributes to the under-researched area of autism technology by adopting a socio-ecological lens of autism instead of a medically focused orientation. We uncover a potential danger of VR system designs that focus on training social communication skills as this can force socio-normative behaviours on autistic people. Thus, we suggest VR designs that promote a sense of agency and develop autistic people’s self-advocacy skills.
• Our work responds to calls to involve autistic people in the early stages of technology design. We show how our inclusive design methodology effectively engaged autistic participants in the study and elicited rich feedback.
• We discover the design space for interventions targeting neurotypical employees and managers to develop an understanding and appreciation of autistic employees.
• We discover the design space for interventions targeting neurotypical employees and managers to develop an understanding and appreciation of autistic employees.