What does inclusivity and accessibility in the metaverse look like?

The view that immersive technology isn’t for everyone could be understood as a matter of personal taste: “I don’t like to wear VR goggles that cut me off from the world”; “it’s really for young people and gamers”. But hidden within these statements we can often find implicit obstacles to engagement that are being unquestioningly accepted, and that are not simply a matter of taste. There are social, economic and cultural assumptions so ingrained in economic and design common-sense that they are rarely challenged, which can marginalise many potential users. Technological innovation is so often simply targeted at the largest possible market, with the needs of minorities seen as ‘niche’, or worse, as luxury add-ons. But to be older, disabled, neurodivergent or in digital poverty is not a consumer choice.

Immersive media technology – the hardware and software that combine to give the impression of being surrounded by a 3D environment – has a specific appeal for those who face physical, cultural or social obstacles to participation. While not a solution, it can offer dynamic experiences and expansive opportunities in ways that much of the physical ‘real’ world is often not designed to provide. The ‘metaverse’ – the concept of immersive media as a shared virtual space – can facilitate moments of play, communication and even intimacy that extend and augment the real world, rather than substitute or compensate for it. This is not just escapism – it should instead be framed as the possibility to engage in meaningful activity, whatever that may mean to an individual user.

What would inclusivity and accessibility in the metaverse look like? This is a complex and multidimensional issue, but the starting point of any exploration must be both an awareness that the ‘real’ world is designed around very normative social and cultural assumptions about bodies, and that the virtual realm needs to go beyond that – to do better. The metaverse should not simply duplicate the world as it is, it should offer more creative choice, more crazy and weird opportunities for embodied expression, and extensions and augmentations of possible actions beyond the normative. It should be empowering, capacious, and enriching.

Our research focused on dance. We asked how could ‘dance in the metaverse’ – a practice of moving with avatars (3D simulated bodies controlled by motion capture) – be an accessible, empowering and expansive activity for the widest possible group of people. Our goal is to create immersive platforms that are easy to use, intuitive, relatively affordable, and which can get people engaging with each other creatively through movement. Almost anyone, with any sort of body or capacity for motion, with divergent minds, and with any level of dance experience, can successfully create and share dance through motion capture, 3D software and networking devices.

We have learned that an inclusive and accessible metaverse needs to address three key issues.

Representation and agency

Most game systems use standardised body shapes for avatars that are often gender normative and represent only a narrow set of types of body, even when they may offer a multitude of different skin tones or hairstyles. This is a problem for dance, where the shape and form of a body defines how it can move. Accurate body representation is important to many people, as it is so intimately tied to how they express themselves through movement.

However, there should also be opportunities for expansive embodiment through forms and interactions that go beyond normative human corporeality. These can be physics-based systems that take bodily motion and express it in altered, abstract, or patterned kinetic forms. This is still dance, but an extension of what dance expression can mean. Agency is as important as representation here; so while it is important to see disability, prosthetics and non-normative bodies represented on screen in both realistic and figurative ways, an equally significant factor is that dancers experience a strong sense of control and expressive potential within the avatar body.

Remoteness and tele-presence

We envision people from all walks and life, both disabled and non-disabled, being able to participate in dance from any space, with no specific expertise, using any kind of motion capture system. Playful virtual dance environments can provide access to learning and experiences without having to travel to a traditional arts venue. There are lively and interactive dance cultures on platforms like TikTok, so how can we generate similar dynamic dance engagement in three dimensions? This could enable cross-cultural, live collaboration across large physical distances.

Immersivity

Immersion is a key aspect of the metaverse as imagined through VR and Augmented Reality devices. For our research, however, immersion is as much about the experience of agency and flow when moving together with another person, as it is about the technology itself. We can experience immersion in screen environments, sonically, or even just on a laptop screen. That said, extended reality (XR) and 3D environments are a new medium for dance. Immersive interfaces reveal a different kind of sculptural depth and complexity which has exciting implications for education and training, as well as for creating audience experiences that naturally elicit movement and interaction.

VR and XR devices are often seen as isolating, detaching one from the real world, but through our experimental research they become instead a portal to interactions with others. We are still at the beginning of this journey, and while motion capture hardware is coming down in price, it still remains costly for the average user. But the future looks bright. If we can convince the big tech companies about the value of inclusive, accessible and affordable design, more people can be empowered to get moving, creating and sharing.

Dr Daniel Strutt is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London. He undertook an Innovation Fellowship with Alexander Whitley Dance Company in 2022-3.