Using virtual reality to design for persons with disabilities: Past and future applications

Accommodating persons with disabilities in the workplace may pose much difficulty to some employers because of the lack of knowledge in properly designing for disabled and able employees. This paper explores the possibilities of using Virtual Reality as a design tool. Specifically, this paper presents the conceptual idea of using Virtual Reality as a tool to assist in designing the workplace for disabled employees. The use of Virtual Reality to assist in designing for persons with disabilities in the workplace should result in benefits which include prototyping design ideas and visualizing potential design problems prior to implementation.