"Remove the Floor, Remove the Chair": Co-Designing Minimalist VR Offices with Low Vision Users
Year: 2026
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: Virtual Reality (VR) workspaces promise flexible, immersive alternatives to physical offices, yet existing designs are designed for fully sighted users and often overload the visual channel with high levels of realism. To identify which customization options actually support sustained productivity, we conducted an in‑VR co‑design study with 11 low vision participants. Using four pre‑built office scenes (abstract to realistic) as starting points, each participant iteratively configured displays, color schemes, and environmental elements. Quantitative analysis revealed that participants arranged between one and five monitors, combined inverted and non‑inverted screens, and employed large “colossal” displays to balance detail and context. Qualitative results showed that participants relied on individualized strategies to manage visual load, including sparse environments, and heterogeneous multi-display setups, while separating immediate work areas from peripheral "resting" zones. From these findings, we derive three design implications for accessible VR offices: (i) provide fine‑grained, end‑to‑end controllability, (ii) support heterogeneous multi‑display configurations, and (iii) offer a continuum of environment abstractions with tunable visual parameters. Together, these contributions demonstrate that personalized user-driven customization is essential to mitigate visual overload and foster comfortable VR office environments for low vision users that support both accessibility and aesthetic self-expression.
Institution: Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Language: English
Subfield: Human-Computer Interaction
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Reduced inequalities
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W7223296753