Accessibility In The Metaverse

Who We Are

We are a working group of the Metaverse Standards Forum dedicated to securing accessibility and inclusion for everyone in the metaverse.

Our goal is to generate insights, identify risks, and recommend strategies and best practices to ensure that immersive experiences, environments, interfaces, and interactions are accessible to all, regardless of abilities or disabilities and access needs.

Ultimately, we will support the creation of comprehensive XR standards on par with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. This will enable organizations to know with certainty whether their XR applications are accessible or not, and open the door to the next phase of ethical growth of the metaverse.

Featured News & Update

Metaverse Standards Forum XR Accessibility Guidelines – v1.0

The MSF XR Accessibility Guidelines, a first-of-its-kind resource from the Metaverse Standards Forum’s Accessibility Working Group, was built to help creators evaluate the accessibility of XR experiences for users of all levels of ability.

The guidelines offer testable, technology-agnostic criteria in the spirit of the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, but purpose-built for XR. They span system design, avatars, captions, navigation, input methods, and comfort & safety. They also include examples of how forward-thinking experiences like Owlchemy Labs’ Cosmonious High introduce features that help meet the challenge.

These criteria move beyond past guidance that assumes a baseline level of vision and motion, leaving those without those abilities behind. XR applications that meet these criteria would be usable by people with significant disabilities — full blindness, quadriplegia, and beyond.
This is v1.0, and it’s still maturing. We’re especially looking for feedback on testability of certain criteria, feasibility of experimental items, and how we’ve classified Requirements vs. Best Practices. You can weigh in by:

• Leaving a comment directly in the document
• Filling out our feedback form
• Emailing the chairs (Dylan Fox, Michael Cooper, and James Maki) at accessibility-chair@lists.metaverse-standards.org

Our first major review period closes Friday, July 31, 2026

Why Join?

Making the metaverse accessible is a group effort. We need representatives from across tech, academia, advocacy and more to solve it – including you!  

We generally meet every other Tuesday at 8am PT / 11am ET / 3pm UTC via Zoom.  Members can access our MSF Portal, participate in meetings, contribute to working documents, and more.  

Joining does not come with any formal responsibilities – if you just want to receive email updates or listen in on the meetings, that’s fine. However, we hope that you will help us conduct research, reach out to stakeholders, and do your part to make the metaverse a more inclusive place!  If you’d like a one-time invite to see if the group is right for you, email us at accessibility-chair@lists.metaverse-standards.org. 

How to Join

To formally join the group, your organization must be a member of the Metaverse Standards Forum.  Signing up your organization as a participant is easy and free, even for sole proprietorships. If your organization is already a member, you can register for an account using an email with your organization’s domain name.

If you’re having trouble, see our full “How to Join” instructions.

If you’re not ready to join the working group, you can also sign up for our mailing list and get our regular updates on draft standards.

Working Group Chairs

Metaverse Standards Form working groups address the interoperability challenges and opportunities that are vital to the driving the open metaverse.  These working groups are led by our volunteer chairs who give their time to help coordinate and drive discussions with members of the group.

Contact us: accessibility-chair@lists.metaverse-standards.org