Virtual Reality Serious Games for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Design Consideration

Virtual reality has been a popular training tool for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in recent years. Although virtual reality was proven to be a promising tool for individuals with ASD by many previous studies, effects of virtual reality properties on user experience is still an unexplored area. More comparison studies and reliable data are needed to identify the benefits of different VR methods and properties, and leverage the future VR systems. In this dissertation, we explored effects of virtual reality properties on user experience of high functioning individuals with ASD with four different serious game experiments. The first experiment consisted of a virtual reality serious game system for vocational training of individuals with ASD. Although this experiment was focused on the effectiveness of virtual reality training on vocational skills of individuals with ASD and was not comparative; during the user study with 9 neurotypical and 9 high functioning ASD individuals, several observations regarding the effects of virtual reality properties on user experience have been performed. The next three experiments investigated the following: effects of instruction methods on user performance with virtual reality warehouse serious game, effects of visual fidelity and view zoom on user performance with a virtual reality investigation serious game, and effects of environmental clutter and motion on user performance with a virtual reality searching serious game. These three experiments were evaluated with user studies of 15 neurotypical and 15 high functioning ASD individuals.