Universal access: user needs for immersive captioning

This article focuses on building a prototyping for immersive captioning following a user-centric approach. This methodology is characterised by following a bottom-up approach, where usability and user needs are at the heart of the development. Recent research on user requirements for captioning in immersive environments has shown that there is both a need for improvement and a wealth of research opportunities. The final aim is to identify how to display captions for an optimal viewing experience. This work began four years ago with some partial findings. We build from the lessons learnt, focussing on the user-centric design requirements cornerstone: prototyping. Our prototype framework integrates methods used in existing solutions aiming at instant contrast-and-compare functionalities. The first part of the article presents the state of the art for user requirements identifying the reasons behind the development of the prototyping framework. The second part of the article describes the two-stage framework development. The initial framework concept answered to the challenges resulting from the previous research. As soon as the first framework was developed, it became obvious that a second improved solution was required, almost as a showcase on how ideas can quickly be implemented for user testing, and for users to elicit requirements and creative solutions. The article finishes with a list of functionalities, resulting in new caption modes, and the opportunity of becoming a comprehensive immersive captions testbed, where tools such as eye-tracking, or physiological testing devices could be testing captions across any device with a web browser.