Advancing UX for VR: Campfire Digital In partnership With Media Cymru

Why Openality Matters

VR holds tremendous educational potential, yet mainstream hardware and software exclude many neurodivergent and disabled users by assuming uniform sensory, motor, and cognitive abilities. Openality challenges this default approach - our goal extends beyond making VR simply usable for neurodivergent and disabled users to making it engaging, responsive, exciting, and safe for this currently underserved community.

The International Organization for Standardization defines user experience as "a person's perceptions and responses that result from the use, or anticipated use, of a product, system or service". In VR, this encompasses the full extent of how someone encounters, navigates, and internalises virtual environments - including physical comfort, cognitive processing, emotional response, sense of presence, and learning outcomes. User experience shapes not only what users accomplish within virtual spaces, but their confidence, curiosity, and future willingness to engage with immersive technologies. We believe no one should be marginalised from the rich experiences VR can provide, and addressing this imbalance drives Openality's mission.

Beyond emotional and sensory enrichment, VR offers clear pedagogical benefits including real-world preparation, emotional regulation support, and enhanced confidence and communication. Research by V.S. Naruka and Upadhyay demonstrates VR's potential to enhance learning and therapeutic processes for neurodivergent students "by providing engaging multisensory educational content that caters to their specific learning styles," while proving effective in improving social communication for individuals with autism and increasing attention spans for those with ADHD.

However, most VR products are built around narrow assumptions of "typical" users, rarely accounting for the sensory processing differences or physical access needs of neurodivergent people and those with disabilities. Core settings like brightness, colour palette, motion intensity, and audio are often fixed by developers with minimal customisation options. Interaction patterns are similarly constrained to default inputs. Consequently, those whose bodies and sensory profiles fall outside these parameters face marginalisation or complete exclusion.

Lukava, Ramirez, and Barbareschi found that neurodivergent individuals frequently experience sensory overload with XR technologies, making customisation of sensory settings essential for preventing negative experiences. Critically, their research revealed that XR developers lack awareness of accessibility requirements and struggle to integrate them into current development practices. 

These challenges have become evident through our partnership with Ysgol Y Deri, the UK's largest SEN school.

Co-creating with Ysgol Y Deri

We're privileged to partner with Ysgol Y Deri (YYD) in Penarth - a renowned specialist school whose staff and learners guide our design decisions week by week. Beginning during the R&D seed programme, we've conducted extensive interviews, prototype sessions, and classroom observations to ground our approach in real educational contexts and constraints.

YYD's expertise is widely recognised (featured in the BBC/Open University series A Special School). What both the programme and our sessions reveal is the combination of expertise, empathy, and pragmatism required to support complex needs. Co-designing in this environment means solutions emerge with users, not for them - ensuring relevance, accessibility, and lasting impact. This collaborative approach is the only path to products that genuinely help.

What pupils and staff tell us - and how it shapes design

Three clear themes emerge from our classroom work. First, control beats complexity. Teachers and learners need to navigate, launch, pause, and adapt experiences without friction. When menus, logins, or convoluted options create barriers, learners quickly become confused or overwhelmed. As one teacher explained: "if they don't understand the task … they just get bored or disheartened and they stop."

Second, predictability reduces anxiety. Small adjustments to brightness, colour palette, audio levels, or transition speeds can determine whether a session feels calming or overwhelming. Real-time control over these elements proves vital, with research confirming that giving neurodivergent learners deliberate control over stimuli improves both comfort and focus. One teacher illustrated this: "I have a child … wears ear defenders majority of the time … for him loud noises can be quite a trigger … to have control of that is very important … a slightly dialed down offer."

Finally, participation drives pride. Pupils embrace their role as "game testers," finding satisfaction in identifying issues and seeing their feedback reflected in subsequent prototypes. This process builds confidence, sharpens analytical skills, and fosters ownership while extending learning back into the classroom.

Teacher and assistive technology lead Lisa Rees-Renshaw observes: "Working alongside a researcher on a new VR gaming project has provided some of our pupils with a unique and empowering opportunity to be game testers and co-creators … The project supports the development of research skills, including critical thinking, problem-solving, and reflective evaluation. Pupils gain insight into how their voices can influence design and accessibility, reinforcing their sense of agency and inclusion."

What we’re building next

Working alongside teachers and learners, we're transitioning from proof-of-concept to classroom-ready solutions. Our focus is creating immersive experiences that directly address the access barriers identified through our research - those that currently prevent many from experiencing VR's documented educational and therapeutic benefits.

This development will produce practical guidance that others can reference and apply across Virtual Reality and related platforms. The next phase delivers a specialist UX framework for Virtual Reality in Special Educational Needs contexts - one that builds on existing frameworks while moving beyond the prevalent one-size-fits-all approach.

How this fits Wales’ media innovation story

Media Cymru is a consortium made up of 22 partner organisations based across the Cardiff Capital Region, including Cardiff University, BBC, S4C and Welsh Government. Media Cymru’s Development Programme exists to catalyse future-facing innovations that strengthen the media sector in the Cardiff Capital Region - supporting projects that are fairer, greener and economically sustainable. 

Openality contributes to this by broadening participation. Accessible design extends opportunity and, as UK research on inclusive design repeatedly shows, inclusion is a growth strategy as well as a moral imperative.

An open invitation

We’re actively expanding our co-creation network beyond YYD to additional SEN settings and mainstream schools with SEN provision. If you’re a head, SENCO, teacher, therapist, learner, parent or developer who wants to help shape what inclusive VR should feel like, we’d love to talk.

• Educators / schools: pilot Openality prototypes and help us validate the classroom workflows that matter to you.
• Researchers / practitioners: collaborate on evaluation so we can evidence impact with rigor.
• Industry partners: join us in building the next generation of adaptive, accessible immersive tools.

Follow Our Journey

🔗 Learn more about our journey so far and our partnership with Ysgol Y Deri: Breaking Barriers and Learning Through Partnership on the Campfire site.

Let’s reimagine the future of immersive technology - together!