A user study on deaf individuals in VR social spaces - the emergence of the VR sign language

Deaf individuals often isolate themselves due to living in a predominately hearing world where there is a lack of deaf awareness and knowledge of their native language – sign language. As a result, some communities of deaf individuals have turned to social virtual reality platforms to escape and meet others around the world using sign language communication. However, because sign language encompasses many components, including hand gestures, facial expressions, lip patterns, and body language, current VR technologies make it difficult for individuals to fully express themselves in sign language. This ongoing study adopts a human-centred research approach to understand the experiences of the deaf community in virtual reality. In this work-in-progress paper we present initial results from a user need analysis with deaf VR users, which suggest that current VR technologies lack in providing deaf individuals with the ability to use their native language sign language, and the emergence of a new sign language for use in VR – the virtual reality sign language, which we are the first to report about. Moreover, we present initial low-fidelity prototypes of virtual spaces where deaf people can socialise and an initial evaluation of the design of such spaces.