Virtual Accessibility Mapping, Awareness Raising, and Real-World Advocacy

MARK: So hello, everyone. As Thomas just mentioned, my name is Mark Bookman, and I'm a postdoctoral fellow at Tokyo College within the University of Tokyo. So before I start, I would just like to thank Thomas and the rest of the organizers and everyone else who has helped to put this wonderful meetup together. I really appreciate you all taking the time and bringing us here to have this conversation today.

I'm gonna be speaking about a number of things. But I've given this talk the title: Virtual accessibility mapping, awareness raising, and real world advocacy. Essentially, I'm gonna divide this into three different steps. The first step I'm gonna just speak a little bit about myself, as a disabled individual, researcher, and activist, working in Japan.

So you can have some idea of how I approach questions of accessibility and inclusion. What type of work I do. And how that might relate to the virtual reality space. After I'm done talking about my own sort of interests and questions, I'm gonna provide a brief framing of the context in which I work.

Namely, Tokyo, Japan. Thinking about what accessibility issues are existing in Japan right now. Why the country looks the way it does. Who is included.

And excluded. In different types of spaces. Education, employment, entertainment, health care. Different parts of society.

And then after thinking about those inclusions and exclusions, I'm gonna bring us into virtual reality. And talk about how VR has in some ways solved problems, and in some ways, created problems. For people with different types of disabilities. By talking about the pros and cons, hopefully I'll set us up to move forward in thinking about more inclusive ways to design and implement virtual reality.

So okay. That was a fairly long introduction. Let me just give you a little bit more about myself. So as I mentioned, my name is Mark Bookman.

I'm at Tokyo College. And as you can see from the photo on the left here, I use a motorized wheelchair to get around. I actually have a neurodegenerative muscle condition, kind of like an ALS or a muscular dystrophy. Where over time, all the muscles of my body have gotten weaker.

As a result of that condition, I had a heart transplant when I was 10. And these days, I use 24-hour caregiver support, as well as a mechanical ventilator at night, to assist my breathing. So why, as a disabled individual, and, as you may be able to tell from my accent, I'm originally from the United States... How is it that I've come to Japan to work in this space?

And why am I interested in inclusion in Japan? Well, to get to that conversation, I actually have to bring us back a little bit towards my childhood. So as I mentioned, I have this neurodegenerative muscle condition. And because of that, I spent most of my childhood in the hospital.

Especially after I had my heart transplant, when I was 10, I was heavily immunosuppressed. And wasn't able to go outside. This was the early 2000s. So just at this point in time, Japanese animation started being imported in large quantities towards the United States.

And it became possible to watch anime on TV. Now, as someone who didn't have much else to do, anime was kind of a natural escape for me. But it also showed me things that I wasn't necessarily seeing in Western media. You know, I was seeing cyborg bodies with wires and connections that really resembled myself, as I was attached to my IV pole.

In that picture, you can see on the left here. And really, recognizing myself in Japanese anime, more than I did in American cartoons, I developed a fondness for it, decided that one day I was going to travel to Japan. And I did. So in 2008, I went to Japan for the first time.

And I've been jumping back and forth now for the last 13, 14 years or so. You know, I thought that I was going to be encountering a culture that was very technologically advanced. And cyborgs and anime culture that I had experienced on TV, kind of embodied in its architectural and infrastructural frameworks. But what I found when I got on the ground in Tokyo is that my experience was not quite as inclusive or accessible as I had imagined.

And in fact, my life was filled with a number of barriers. So let me give you an example of what type of barriers I encountered, going back and forth. Just by talking about one day, for instance. So my typical day might begin by getting out of bed, with help from a caregiver.

Typically, they'll help transfer me into my large motorized wheelchair that an engineer had to put together. And then I'll drive that across my barrier-free apartment that an architect designed, before leaving my building. After I get outside, I'll follow the yellow tactile pavement you see here on the ground, towards the nearest train station. So I'm also relying on a city planner, to a certain extent.

I'll get to a train station. And there I'll have to use my government-issued disability pass to pay for a ticket. After paying for my ticket, I'll then go down to the platform, and have a station attendant pull out a ramp for me. So that I'm able to take my wheelchair onto a train.

And finally, after disembarking on the other end, I'll make my way towards my destination. In this case, the school that I work at, University of Tokyo. Where I'll rely on academic administrators and members of the public, other individuals, to assist me in navigating any barriers or obstacles that I might encounter. Suffice it to say that my life in Japan is very much like a puzzle.

Where all of these different stakeholders, architects, engineers, educators, have to come together and work together to facilitate my accessibility. And inclusion in different kinds of spaces. But the problem is that sometimes these people are not necessarily there. Or they're not necessarily working to accommodate an individual with my own personal needs.

They may understand disability as something drastically different than what I need as a white male 31-year-old who is originally from the United States, but now living in Tokyo and using the particular technologies and supportive, assistive devices that I do. If you want a visual to think about this, you can look at this picture of a bridge. Which says here in Japanese: Wheelchair accessible pathway. Now, I can tell you this bridge may be accessible for some types of wheelchair users.

Especially those with smaller devices. But for a big wheelchair user like myself, the curve in the middle of this bridge is very, very narrow. There is no way that I would be able to safely cross this. In fact, I would end up in the water pretty easily.

So the question here is: Not just why was I encountering barriers to accessibility, but who is Japan's accessibility designed for? Is one question that I was particularly interested in. Or brought to research. Through my own lived experiences in the country.

And I realized, of course, even if this was coming out of my own experiences, I was not the only individual affected by what you might call Japan's politics of accessibility. There are many groups of people -- disabled, women, children, older persons -- who are also in need of certain types of accessibility, who are being excluded from Japan's landscape, because we were designing for some people or coordinating for some people and not others.

So I was interested in their experiences. Who was left behind inside of Japan? And indeed, it wasn't just a Japanese problem that I was interested in. I realized pretty early on that Japan was importing its assistive devices, its accessibility standards, from international sources.

So Japan was learning about accessibility from places like the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia. And just as Japan was learning from these places, Japan was also exporting its accessibility devices to these places. So care giving robots built in Japan, being sent to Germany, or accessible train systems being built in Taiwan, toilets in Rwanda, all coming from Japanese design that may have accommodated a local population but may not have accommodated a global population, or vice versa.

I was interested in Japan's role in shaping global accessibility. Because if I was facing barriers inside the country, I could only imagine what it looked like for people outside of it. So these are the topics that I became interested in. Who does Japan accommodate?

Locally. How does it affect global accessibility? And it's in this context that virtual reality really started to interest me. Because, of course, who gets to make virtual reality, and how it gets used in the Japanese context, is going to affect who it benefits and who it leaves behind in other cultures as well.

And likewise, innovations of virtual reality from overseas are certainly going to affect the way it's used in Japan. So today I'm gonna be thinking a little bit about: What does Japan's accessibility look like? How does that affect who makes decisions about how VR should look, how it's used, who it's used for, and how does that inform my understanding as both a researcher and an activist around the types of ways we can use VR to make up for any gaps in this system?

So let's move to the history of accessibility in Japan. For just a minute. I'm trained as a historian. So I want to bring us through some of the recent developments in accessibility, so we can understand just how VR is being implemented right now.

I have here just the title of a book that I'm writing: Disability Politics: Making Accessibility in Modern Japan. For those interested, I have written a 150-year history of accessibility. I don't have time to walk us through all of that today. But I'm going to take this through just a brief segment.

The last 20 years or so. So we can contextualize developments in virtual reality, and how it's being used. So I suppose the first thing you need to know about accessibility in Japan is that the country passed its first laws mandating access to public transportation, for instance, in 2000. You know, before that point in time, everything was optional.

And therefore many places did not have accommodations like ramps, elevators, handrails, different types of barrier-free architecture was not that common in Japan. But once the transit system became accessible in 2000, and that was a product of decades of activism by not just disabled people, but older persons, parents with small children who needed strollers, different groups who also needed accessibility, working together -- when Japan finally did create access to transit, it's as if the floodgates were opened.

You can imagine... If you can get a wheelchair user onto a train, well, then, all of a sudden their destination has to have more pressure on it to become accessible. So a school might become more inclusive. And then access to education means that you might be qualified for employment.

So the job sector starts changing. If you have employment, then you have money. You can spend that on entertainment. If you're able to get entertainment and employment and education, and navigate a built environment, well, then, you're able to live, and maybe you need health care to support that lifestyle.

So we're seeing transformations of different centers of society throughout the early 2000s. And as this pressure blossoms and grows, we're also seeing new laws passed to mandate accessibility in other parts of society. So not just train systems. Not just bus stops.

But also government offices, hospitals, schools, et cetera. In theory, this all sounds great. But in practice, there's a number of implementation issues. Having the laws themselves is not enough.

Typically the places that accessibility devices or features are being installed -- let's say ramps or elevators, for instance -- those places are old. So most of the accommodations being installed are retroactive. And to save money and not disrupt regular flows of traffic, a lot of operators of these facilities are installing accommodations in places that are out of the way. So if you put an elevator at the very far end of a train station, you're technically meeting legal requirements in the early 2000s.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that it's usable. And in fact, it's that much harder for disabled people, for instance, in wheelchairs, to get to that elevator. It takes a lot of time. And this is compounded by the fact that you have multiple people having to share that elevator.

You know, it was created out of this group pressure from so many users. So it's not just one wheelchair user waiting for one elevator at the far end of the train station. It's them waiting alongside old people and bicyclists and parents with small children. All of whom need that elevator.

So suffice it to say these cost cutting measures made it so the accessibility was not that useful in the 2000s. And accordingly, many people were left behind in the process. You know, I remember the first time I traveled to Japan, in the late 2000s. I would have to wait half an hour to get a train.

Because I needed to wait for an attendant to pull out a ramp for me. And help me get on board. And that would take time. And that half an hour, for a number of reasons, would also make me late to my destination.

And it didn't just affect me. It was affecting everyone around me. The people who supported me, my caregivers, were also inconvenienced and delayed, because I was delayed. And the people who relied on me, you know, the students in my classes or my colleagues at work, they also weren't able to engage with me.

So we all lost out that process. This was a problem. But it became a really, really big problem when Japan had its earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown in March of 2011. So for those who don't know, Japan had this big incident.

It's known as the triple disaster. Where many people had to rapidly escape and go to shelters. But of course, if the environment was not accessible, then disabled people could not necessarily get out of their homes in time. If they could get out of their homes, well, then, maybe they would get to a shelter.

And the shelter wouldn't have the right type of accommodations. So it might not have a barrier-free toilet. It might not have the right medicines. It might not have handrails.

And even if they found an accessible shelter, it wasn't necessarily the case that they would be able to race non-disabled people who didn't have the same accessibility needs back into the cities to get food and water and medical supplies, because of panic. So when Japan had this disaster, disabled people were disproportionately affected by it. And in reality, roughly 25% of all deaths linked to this moment... Have been identified as disabled individuals.

So the Japanese government was very heavily criticized, domestically and internationally, for failing to help some of its most vulnerable citizens. And as a result, passed a number of laws in the early 2010s, to try and deal with this problem. So in 2013, Japan passed the law for the elimination of discrimination against persons with disabilities. And in 2014, the country ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

These were new legal frameworks that were not based just around accessibility, but rather on usability. They were designed to eliminate discrimination and make sure that whatever inclusive practices we adopt, we're actually helping the people we're aiming to help. But of course, just having these laws alone was not enough. The government and the activist behind them still needed a practical vehicle to make sure that different members of the public would buy in.

To make sure that the business sector and education sector and different individuals in different parts of society would actually enact and enforce these laws. But thankfully, just as they were coming about, there was another major development in Japan. And that was that Japan won its bid for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games. So when Japan won its bid in 2013, there was an opportunity here to use the pressures of the Games, both international pressure of being witnessed, and domestic pressure for social change, to really enact this new legislation.

And tied to the Games, we did see a number of changes in Japan. So one of the things we saw was a number of "hard" accessibility upgrades. By "hard", I mean infrastructure. Where you used to need a ramp to get onto a train, maybe that train station was rebuilt.

So now you no longer need that ramp. Where there wasn't an elevator in a school, we're going to install an elevator to make sure that space is more accessible. So we saw these sort of built environment changes. In the 2010s.

We also saw a number of "soft" changes. And by soft changes, I mean educational initiatives or awareness-raising projects, to call attention to not just the importance of accessibility, why we need ramps and elevators and handrails and things like that, but also how those devices ought to be used. So we saw government programs and advocacy organizations starting to organize classes around, you know, not just why we should build an elevator, but why disabled people ought to be prioritized when using that elevator.

We saw the incorporation of what could be called education on a barrier-free mindset. Kokono no bariafuri in Japanese. And that barrier-free mindset education was made compulsory in middle and high schools -- public middle and high schools inside of Japan. So there were also these awareness-raising initiatives.

And in part, because we had this -- these hard changes and these soft changes, we had a number of transformations in consciousness among different stakeholders in the public and private sectors. So in the mid-2010s, we saw Japanese businesses starting to describe disabled people as an untapped labor force. Who, via telework, could help make up for some of the nation's economic woes. We saw new technological developments for disabled people.

To facilitate social participation in ways that we had not seen before. And we also saw the election of two disabled individuals to the nation's parliament. It's called the Diet in Japan. So we saw political representation also starting to change.

All these developments allowed for a greater degree of inclusion to some extent. But there were also a number of limitations and barriers. So one set of constraints was material. No matter how hard Japan tried to improve its accessibility ahead of the Games, it was starting from a fairly inaccessible situation.

So I remember there was a survey from 2017 of accessible hotel rooms in the Tokyo area. And of around 300,000 rooms investigated, only 0.4% were wheelchair accessible. So... When you're starting from 0.4% of rooms, even getting to 1% before the Games was a huge endeavor, in terms of rebuilding.

In terms of financing. So it wasn't that easy to remake everything. And that was true across the board. Not just for hotels.

But for train systems and schools and workplaces. So while there was positive motion, it didn't solve all the problems. Another set of issues was tied to human labor constraints. So you might think that if we can't fix all the barriers in the built environment, maybe we can get humans to help each other.

Maybe someone can carry my wheelchair or pull out that ramp for me. But Japan has the world's fastest aging population. Roughly 30% is over the age of 65. And because of the decline in birthrate and the shrinking labor force, it was often very difficult to find people to help in situations where assistance might be needed.

There wasn't necessarily someone there to pull out a ramp at a train station. In fact, roughly 50% of all train stations in Japan operate without personnel. And again, the same logic applies to other centers of society as well. So we tried to fix the built environment.

Barriers remained. We tried to get human labor to help make up for those barriers. There weren't enough humans around to help. And all of this is compounded by awareness issues.

At the end of the day, these laws are relatively new. You know, if Japan passed its law to eliminate discrimination in 2013, between 2013 and 2020, when the Games were supposed to take place, was only 7 years. That's not a lot of time to raise awareness around how the laws ought to be implemented, who was responsible for doing what, and there were a lot of gray zones. You know, I remember there was a huge dialogue about: Should a train attendant have to push my wheelchair off of a train?

Onto the platform? From a platform to the ticket gate? From the ticket gate out of the station? Out of the station to my home?

You know, they were required to provide reasonable accommodations under the law. But what counted as "reasonable", and who got to decide that, was very ambiguous. And it was tough to figure things out, during this period of rapid change. And this really was all exacerbated when COVID broke out in 2020.

So COVID postponed the Olympic Games for a year. But it also made all of these material constraints that much more difficult. You know, construction projects stopped. Amid concerns about safety.

Human labor constraints also became that much more severe. You know, disabled people didn't necessarily want a home helper or someone in public to help them get around, if that meant increased exposure to infection. And likewise, individuals who would help them weren't necessarily inclined or wanting to work in physical proximity to disabled individuals, because of that fear. Awareness issues were made that much more difficult to parse, because when you add the complexity of ever-changing social distancing policies, on top of these newly introduced accessibility laws, it's very difficult to figure out what we ought to do, and for whom.

So a number of people -- many, many people, actually -- fell through the cracks, when COVID broke out. But the Olympics provided an opportunity to showcase their problems on the global stage. Japan had a chance to learn from other countries that came from the Games around how they resolved a lot of these issues with barriers of the built environment. Human labor constraints.

Ways to fix accessibility. So Japan learned from abroad. And likewise, you know, Japan also was able to teach other cultures what had worked. What they had done well.

So there was an exchange of success stories and cautionary tales at the Olympics, that really allowed Japan to start leading conversations on the global stage, around which ways accessibility can go, should go, must go. And this is where VR comes into the picture. I apologize for keeping you waiting so long. Virtual reality is held up in these global conversations as one of the ways to fix many of the barriers and problems inside of Japan.

So if we think about remaining barriers of the built environment, one way that VR has been used is to allow people to go on virtual excursions before they head outside. We can have wheelchair users or people with different types of impairments go to a destination, survey it, and say: Oh, you know what? I need this type of accessibility. I want that thing.

And they can help engage in the rebuilding of these different types of facilities, without ever having to actually be there in person. So there is a greater degree of participation in rebuilding the built environment. Another way that VR is being used is for educational purposes. You know, we've seen VR allow for remote education.

Individuals to sit in classrooms and take course materials from hospital beds. In ways that they might not have been able to do beforehand. So we've seen it as a learning device. We've seen virtual reality for employment training.

And making sure that disabled individuals are able to perform the tasks required of them, to engage effectively in the workforce, in multiple types of venues. Virtual reality has been used to fix entertainment barriers. So if I can't get into an arcade, well, maybe I don't need to. I can play on my Oculus Headset.

Or my... Whatever device I want to use. Entertainment has been changing with virtual reality in Japan as well. It's been used in the health care setting.

So we've seen doctors simulating surgeries, so that they have better understanding of what type of experiences they might encounter, when working with and on disabled individuals. So it's allowed for transformations in medical knowledge as well. But... All of these experiments of virtual reality have raised a number of questions around whether virtual reality is actually helping or whether it's making things worse.

And for whom. So let me explain that problem. There's always a question in these debates around virtual reality around who the device is being used for. Is it supposed to simulate a disabled experience?

For a non-disabled individual? Or is it supposed to facilitate participation of a disabled individual in some sector of society? Is it supposed to do both at the same time? Depending on the user and target of virtual reality, we've seen a lot of people excluded.

Especially when these conversations... Or experiment sessions with virtual reality... Are not appropriately framed. So there are instances where you might put a virtual reality headset on someone and say: This is what it's like to go around in a wheelchair.

It really isn't. You're giving them one insight for one type of space, for one certain amount of time. That doesn't necessarily give all the experience of a wheelchair user. And if it's framed as such, or rather, if it's not framed in a way that highlights the limitations, that's led to some problems with implementation.

And this raises a question around how VR ought to be designed. And who should design it. You know, if we need to make sure that there's appropriate framing of how virtual reality is being you've, to make sure that if we're using it for education or employment, that we're showcasing who a device will help. That we're thinking proactively about who is gonna get left behind, and working to include them.

There's a question around how to build more inclusively, and the answer to that has been to crowd source. And to focus on co-development. To make sure that disabled people are involved in the design process. But that's been problematic as well.

In part, because there are so many remaining barriers. How do you contact disabled people to make sure you have adequate representation in that design process. You know? Do you know how to get ahold of someone like myself, not as an expert, but just as an American wheelchair user who lives in the middle of Tokyo.

Maybe the government or maybe the tech industry working on these projects hasn't thought about my involvement. And they don't know how to contact me or others like me. So this is a question. And of course, another big problem is...

Even if you can get the involvement of disabled people in the design process, you can't necessarily fix barriers in multiple sectors of society at the same time. So if the architect using virtual reality to talk about the environment is thinking about accessibility one way, and the educator using virtual reality to talk about education is thinking about accessibility another way, and they don't coordinate, then the end result can be kind of like that bridge I showed you at the beginning of this presentation.

They've thought about one type of individual or one type of space. And they haven't coordinated to make sure all the pieces of the puzzle come together. So folks get left behind. And this type of coordination, as I mentioned, must occur locally, but also on the global level.

Because Japanese innovations in VR are being exported overseas, and overseas innovations in VR are being imported to Japan. So what do we do to fix these problems? How do we create a more inclusive VR experience? Or at least frame how VR could be used in a more inclusive way?

Well, I'm gonna give us one way that I think virtual reality can be used to facilitate better access for more people. Again, I'll reiterate that I'm trained as an academic. I work in academic spaces. I think as a historian.

So... One space that I'm typically familiar with, that I think has a real privileged opportunity here, to make a change, is the University. The university is a space where current and future leaders in all types of disciplines, current and future architects and educators and people working on technology are all coming together in a classroom to talk about issues. It's a space where interdisciplinary and interindustry collaboration can happen in ways that it doesn't happen outside, in many cases.

And because of that, it also provides a really good space to talk about and think about virtual reality. Because it shows us, from each of these students' perspectives, each of the research disciplines' perspectives, how VR is being used. Where the gaps are. And how we can talk across divides to make sure that those gaps are eliminated.

So when I teach about virtual reality in my classrooms, one of the things that I do is I put it on. And I show my students just how difficult using virtual reality can be. So when I put on virtual reality, I show my students... Look.

I have trouble moving my arms around. I have trouble effectively moving my head with the device on. You know, just because we're saying that virtual reality is fixing problems, as a wheelchair user, I can't effectively participate in those projects. The exclusion of my voice is going to matter down the road.

For many people. So I show them how the device can create physical problems. But in addition to the material constraints of how to use VR, I also engaged a number of awareness-raising projects in the virtual world, to showcase barriers to access and inclusion. So to give you an idea of what a virtual reality classroom experience might look like, I'm gonna share a quick video that I put together with the help of Thomas and Joly.

A little while ago. So I believe Joly... You have the video cued up. If you would be so kind as to share that now...

So we can show everyone here how I might use virtual reality in a classroom setting. [VIDEO PLAYS]

THOMAS: Go ahead, Mark.

MARK: We'll show that once you're inside this room, the shower is too small. My chair can't get in there. And likewise, the toilet is way too short. There's no way that I'm gonna be able to transfer onto that.

And get back onto that. And there's a step up into the bath, which means that I probably won't be able to transfer into that either. So again, you just have the ability of showcasing how, as a wheelchair user, I'm able to go some places and not others. And while I'm a wheelchair user, people with different types of disabilities or different types of needs will be able to point out different things.

So maybe somebody who needs Braille will point out: No Braille in this room. Maybe someone who needs a trash can for a sanitary napkin will point out that that's not here. Everyone with their own needs will point out a different problem. So this bed is rather short.

And as someone who uses a tall wheelchair, I might be able to transfer into it. But I'm not necessarily able to transfer back out of the bed into my wheelchair. So one of the things that this VR is letting us do is showcase how even something that might look accessible -- I'm able to get my wheelchair into the room, and even able to get it next to the bed -- that look of accessibility is not enough.

We need someone who has the experience of that accessibility to tell us what does or doesn't work for them. And the fact that we're all able to be here talking together about what does and doesn't work lets us learn from each other.

MARK: All right. So if I wanted to eat at this table, I would have to pull my wheelchair up close. But because the table is kind of low to the ground, and has this overarching lip, it's really tough for me to get close. I won't easily be able to eat or drink, which becomes a huge problem.

And likewise, there's technically a stove. But because all these cabinets are in the way, I can't turn my wheelchair to cook. So I can't even start to make food, or eat food, in this type of environment. Again, even though it's a big room, if it doesn't fit my wheelchair, that's a problem.

So inside of this classroom, we can see that the speaking area is very narrow. So I'm not gonna be able to necessarily teach and face the class with this type of environment. So one thing to ask is: How do I make sure there's enough room up front for me to teach? And there's enough room with these desks in the back?

They're all bolted down to the ground. So again, as a wheelchair user, I might not be able to get my chair inside of those desks at the right height. This cubicle is way too small for my wheelchair. There's just no way that I'm gonna be able to park or work here.

It's too low and it's too narrow. So realistically, if I wanted to work here, I can't get my wheelchair close. I probably can't type at that keyboard. And even using that phone is probably gonna be a problem.

Again, in theory, setting up a space would allow people to work here. But in practice, it's not necessarily that accessible. If we're able to go here in virtual reality, and talk about the fact that this desk is too low, or too narrow, maybe we can fix it before we build it in real life. This vending machine is not at the right height.

I'm gonna have trouble reaching to get my food from here. This exam room is very, very narrow. I'm probably not gonna be able to get my chair inside to get seen. If I have a problem.

Having a space for medical examination alone is not enough. I need to make sure that it can be used by a large wheelchair like myself. These beds are pretty obviously designed for a smaller wheelchair. Like the one next to me.

That might be fine if you need to get to and from that wheelchair. But again, if you're in a big device like the one that I'm in, that's gonna be a problem. We need to make sure that things are adjustable. And I just want to reiterate the fact that I'm showing this from a wheelchair user's perspective lets us see some barriers.

But if we do the same exercise with someone who is blind or someone who is deaf or someone who has a different type of disability or a different type of need, whether it's based on gender or race or class, religion... The fact that there's no prayer room, the fact that there's no gender neutral bathroom around this area, everyone is going to point out their own problems and we're able to walk around together and do that in this virtual space.

That helps us learn what everyone needs. On this train, there's no wheelchair tiedowns. There's no way to keep my chair secure. So I may or may not be able to ride this effectively.

The fact that there's space at all is kind of a miracle. But that's one thing that I noticed immediately. I can't go into the stores over on this way or this way. They don't have ramps.

Even if I'm able to get into an amusement park, I'm not necessarily able to enjoy it. And that I'm not able to enjoy it means that the people who come with me are not able to enjoy it. And the people who I'm gonna complain to -- they're not gonna be able to enjoy it. Accessibility matters for everyone.

And that I can showcase that in this virtual environment means we can do it in the real world. [VIDEO ENDS]

MARK: Thanks so much for sharing the video. And with that... I just want to say that I think in terms of our classroom environment, we have this great potential to bring together different perspectives, to use virtual reality, both showing how the correct designs are insufficient and opening up future possibilities. I think in the Japanese context, that's going to be important going forward, and thus it's going to have global implications that will in some way affect all of us.

So we should think about what our role is. And with that, we're just about at time. So I'll end my talk, and we can move towards any questions you might have. So thank you all for listening.

THOMAS: Yeah. And thank you so much, Mark, for the excellent presentation today. We've had tons of people joining us online. So thank you, everyone who has been joining us from all over the world today for Mark's presentation.

We're going to take three questions, which we already have. That I'm gonna give to Mark. And if you have more questions or would like to continue the discussion, we will be going into a Mozilla Hubs environment after this. So we will be utilizing virtual reality.

And if you would like to continue the discussion, you're invited to do that there. So... Let's just do our three questions. And Mark, your first question: Meta has introduced avatar options showing a range of disabilities.

They say it's designed to allow people with accessibility needs to better express... But none of them physically behave as realistic as your demo. What is your opinion on, I guess, the avatars with disabilities and also the behavior or animation of avatars with disabilities.

MARK: Thank you very much for the question. To be honest with you, I had to look really hard to find an avatar that I would be able to use to virtually represent my disability. And in the end, I couldn't find one. So I actually had to turn around to one of my programming buddies and say: Hey, can you build something for me?

The fact that I had to put in that amount of time and energy and effort and resources just to produce a model that remotely resembled my real life experience is telling. Not only telling of the fact that it's very difficult to represent any amount of diversity, but also that, you know, even after all that, the functionality of the model was still limited is a problem. So I think -- and this comes back to something I mentioned during the talk -- which is: We need to have more disabled people involved in the design process.

Not just of the virtual reality device, but rather of the applications in software as well. So I suppose the short answer to your question is: I think there are many limitations that still need to be overcome. So... We need to work together to make sure that we're moving in the right direction and allowing for more diverse representation.

THOMAS: Awesome. And thank you, Meryl, for sharing. So Mark is getting lots of great feedback from YouTube. And Meryl is sort of pasting in all of the compliments coming in from YouTube for your presentation.

So thank you, everyone, for your kind words. I'm gonna go to the next question for Mark. Which was: I think... I'm trying to interpret the question.

But I think the demonstration that you had -- are the VR mockups that you demonstrated of a specific room? Or a recreated -- maybe more of a background on what you were showing in the demo.

MARK: Sure. So thank you so much for the question. Honestly, the rooms that I picked were picked just based on their relationship to a type of space. So I went looking for a space that would represent "home".

A space that would represent "school". A space that would represent "work". But in reality, the experiment that I showed could be conducted in any virtual world, with any amount of people. For any reason, really.

If we go to, you know... I know in VRChat, the application that I used, there is a world based on Pandora. The Avatar planet, from James Cameron's film. If we went there, we could also do an accessibility audit of Pandora.

So I think it's less about the individual spaces we pick, and more about what we're trying to showcase inside of them. But with that said, since I was trying to emphasize these spaces of home and education, that's why I picked the worlds I did. But thank you for the question.

THOMAS: All right. And last question for you, while we're on the live call. And again, reiterating, if people want to join us in the Hubs space, please check on YouTube for our Meetup. We've provided a URL to join us in that space.

But last question for tonight -- or today -- Mark, do the appearance of stairs in VR give you a sense of anxiety? If they behaved simply as ramps, would that remove that association? I guess this is an interesting conceptual question around virtual design. And how it operates inside of technology.

MARK: That's a great question. Thank you. And my answer to this is a little bit mixed. On the one hand, I find stairs in VR to be almost amusing.

Because they operate as ramps in many cases. I could take my wheelchair straight down and straight up a staircase. In ways I can't do in reality. Which for me is kind of fun and ironic and makes me laugh.

But with that said, I also recognize that it has serious potential for misinformation and for causing awareness issues. So let's say, for example, during the teaching process, I showcase my wheelchair going down a flight of stairs, and someone in the room gets the idea that... Oh, wheelchairs can just go downstairs. That's fine.

No problem. We can do that in real life too. That might be a concern. So there's a real issue around: How do you navigate the potential for bad messages inside of VR, as well as good messages?

How do we make sure that we're communicating authentic or accurate understanding of the barriers that we're showing? And I think when it comes down to that question of authenticity, again, the key is getting as many disabled stakeholders or as many people who need accessibility involved in these programs to showcase just what does or doesn't work for them. So... There's a brief answer to your question.

But I'd love to continue talking about it at some point. Thank you.

THOMAS: Mark, is there a good way to contact you? Is there a preferred way to contact you?

MARK: Yeah. So if you go and look for my website, BookmanResearch.com, you'll find my contact information on there.

THOMAS: Thank you, everyone. And thank you, Mark Bookman, especially.

MARK: Thank you, everyone.