As AI-enabled AR glasses and VR headsets go mainstream, there is an urgent need to evolve today’s web infrastructure to deliver spatial services to these next-generation devices. The race is on to establish the open standards required to make this transition possible at scale. Just as the early web depended on foundational standards to succeed, the spatial internet faces the same challenge. The opportunity lies in building on existing web standards while developing essential new protocols and APIs.

The Metaverse Standards Forum and RP1 are addressing this challenge by launching the Open Metaverse Browser Initiative, an open-source effort to build the foundation for how the world will access spatial services.

The Evolution of the Web

Just as the web browser unlocked the World Wide Web by providing universal access to information on 2D devices, the metaverse browser will unlock proximity-based services across AR and virtual environments without installing separate apps for each service.

The metaverse is the evolution of the World Wide Web, bringing spatial computing to the same open, standards-based foundation that made the web successful.

What This Looks Like

Walk into an airport wearing smart glasses. Instantly, you’ll see a route to your gate overlaid on the floor in front of you. Your flight status floats above your departure gate. Security wait times appear as you approach checkpoints. When you arrive at your gate, the airline’s check-in interface appears automatically. You select your seat from a 3D visualization of the plane. Meanwhile, a colleague in another city joins you virtually, their avatar standing beside you for a quick meeting before your flight.

None of this will require installing apps. Each service will activate automatically based on your location. The airport provides navigation, the airline provides check-in, your company provides communication tools. All working together seamlessly in your view, then disappearing as you move to new locations.

This is how the metaverse works: multiple services from different providers appearing automatically based on where you are and what you need.

The AOL Moment

The XR industry today resembles the early 1990s internet, fragmented into incompatible proprietary platforms. We’re in another “AOL moment.” Just as walled gardens gave way to the open web, today’s proprietary XR platforms will evolve into an open metaverse built on universal standards.

A standards-based metaverse browser connects any device to any spatial service, giving organizations the ability to own and operate their spatial presence just like hosting a website today. Open standards create full data ownership, revenue control, and freedom to build without dependence on any platform or gatekeeper.

How do we get the standards we need before fragmentation becomes locked in?

RP1 has developed an operational prototype metaverse browser that connects to immersive 3D content and third-party services across any device, on demand, in real time. RP1 is contributing this prototype to seed an open-source project under the stewardship of the Metaverse Standards Forum, a collaborative non-profit bringing together more than 2,500 member companies and leading standards organizations.

The initiative will be hosted on GitHub under a permissive open-source license, enabling broad industry contributions and providing a functional testbed for exercising and validating interoperability standards.

“Open standards are a powerful foundation for transformative platforms, and RP1 has given us an extraordinary head start to create not just a browser implementation, but a testbed for interoperability collaboration,” said Neil Trevett, president of the Metaverse Standards Forum. “We invite the standards community to join the initiative and leverage this mutual opportunity to drive the evolution and widespread adoption of their standards.”

“The metaverse and XR industry is fragmented and proprietary. A standards-based metaverse browser is the way forward and the Metaverse Standards Forum was custom built to foster this kind of industry-wide cooperation,” said Sean Mann, co-founder and CEO of RP1. “Industry and academic interest in this project has been overwhelming, and we welcome all interested parties to get involved.”

Join Us

This is a call to the entire standards community: standards development organizations with expertise in web, networking, 3D, spatial, and XR technologies; implementers ready to build, test, and validate emerging specifications; enterprises planning spatial infrastructure who want a seat at the table; and developers and researchers passionate about spatial technologies.

Early participants will shape the project’s direction, structure, and deliverables. The initiative will use proven, transparent open-source governance welcoming contributions from all. Organizations are encouraged to join the Metaverse Standards Forum for a voice in the project and broader Working Group activities.

The post Metaverse Standards Forum and RP1 Create the Open Metaverse Browser Initiative – Join Us in Building the Next Open Ecosystem appeared first on Metaverse Standards Forum.

Working Group Chairs

Metaverse Standards Form working groups address the interoperability challenges and opportunities that are vital to 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.

Prem Anand Balachandran

Working Group Chair

Bala Aatral Solutions Pvt Ltd

• LinkedIn

Lauri Ilola

Working Group Chair

Nokia

• LinkedIn

Ken Jakubzak

Working Group Chair

Meta

• LinkedIn

Skip Kimpel

Working Group Chair

Magicgate

• LinkedIn

Aditya Mani

Working Group Chair

YOLOgram

• LinkedIn

Amanda Morgan

Working Group Chair

Bentley Systems

• LinkedIn

Nick Porcino

Working Group Chair

Pixar Animations Studio

• LinkedIn

Ralf Schaefer

Working Group Chair

InterDigital

• LinkedIn

Katherine Schildmeyer

Working Group Chair

IEEE SA

• LinkedIn

Joe D Williams

Working Group Chair

Web 3D

• LinkedIn

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View Working Group Charter

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. 

Grig Bilham

Working Group Chair

Sumset Tech

• LinkedIn

Yu Yuan

Working Group Chair

Versemaker

• LinkedIn

Ellysse Dick El-Shrafi

Working Group Chair

Meta Reality Labs

• LinkedIn

Aditya Mani

Working Group Chair

YOLOgram

• LinkedIn

Alfred Tom

Working Group Chair

OMA3

• LinkedIn

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Quarterly Report | Apr – Jun 2025 | Metaverse Standards Forum

Accessibility in the Metaverse Working Group Chairs:
Michael Cooper (Aihal Accessibility), Dylan Fox (XR Access), James Maki (Inclusive Reality)

Executive Summary

In Q2 2025, the Accessibility in the Metaverse Working Group held 6 general meetings, expanding to 60 members, and began updating its long-term vision. A significant achievement was the publication of the white paper, “Good Intentions, Real Barriers: Investigating Accessibility in XR Workflows,” along with an interactive Figma prototype, summarizing user research on accessibility barriers in XR. The group continued refining the “virtual museum tour” use case, breaking down key tasks and examining them through the lens of W3C disabled personas to inform ability-agnostic criteria. Additionally, members participated in the 2025 XR Access Symposium, discussing the need for codified accessibility and ethical policies in the metaverse. The group aims to create a working draft of XR accessibility criteria and examples in the next quarter.

Operations

Over the course of Q2, we held 6 general meetings and added another 9 new members to our roster, bringing us to a total of 60. We also began a review of our Long Term Vision to bring it up to date with our current trajectory.

Research

User Research: White Paper Published

Last quarter we began a user research project intended to understand the accessibility barriers facing XR practitioners. Mrunmai Abhyankar, a graduate student of the University of Austin, worked under co-chair Dylan Fox to conduct user interviews with approximately 20 XR creators and accessibility specialists to understand their approach to accessibility in extended reality.

This quarter, we are proud to announce the publication of the results as both a white paper and interactive Figma prototype. These can be found here: Good Intentions, Real Barriers: Investigating Accessibility in XR Workflows.

Our first published white paper, exploring how accessibility figures into XR developer and accessibility tester workflows.

Use Cases: Refining the Virtual Museum

We continued our use case work from last quarter, focusing especially on the use case of students in a virtual museum tour. We broke it down into four key tasks:

1. Choosing an avatar to represent them in the museum
2. Moving around the museum space, observing and interacting with the exhibits
3. Attending a one-to-many presentation from the curator, including a 2D slide show
4. Collaborating in small groups with other students on a project related to their experience

We then examined how four of the W3C disabled personas would complete each of these tasks. This provided insight into how to frame our criteria around ability-agnostic actions, and showcased some of the ways that disabled users could interact with XR.

Outreach

MSF at the 2025 XR Access Symposium

Several members of the MSF Accessibility Working Group attended the 2025 XR Access Symposium, XR Access’ annual conference focused on extended reality accessibility. In particular, the XR/AI Policy & Standards breakout discussion touched on the need to codify and enforce accessibility and other ethical policies for the Metaverse.

The XR/AI Policy & Standards breakout discussion of the 2025 XR Access Symposium included several members of the MSF Accessibility working group.

Goals for Next Quarter

In the next quarter, we plan on moving from use cases to focusing on our next core deliverable informed by our user research: a list of XR accessibility criteria and examples. We also intend to refine and update our long-term vision.

The post Accessibility in the Metaverse Working Group Q2 Report appeared first on Metaverse Standards Forum.

Editor Dylan Fox, Director of Operations, XR Access

Executive Summary

This project, conducted in collaboration with XR Access and the Metaverse Standards Forum (MSF), investigates why accessibility in eXtended Reality (XR) often breaks down between intention and execution—and what tools or systems could help bridge that gap. As XR technologies evolve, ensuring accessibility requires not just awareness, but practical, embedded support that fits real-world workflows.

Interviews with XR creators and accessibility specialists revealed several core challenges: accessibility is often introduced too late in the process due to deadline pressure or lack of ownership, while existing standards like WCAG are viewed as too complex or web-centric for immersive environments. Teams also lack integrated tools for testing and interpreting accessibility. There is limited shared language or structure for communicating accessibility needs across disciplines.

In response, I designed a guideline interface prototype (Figure 1) that makes guidelines easier to understand, filter, and apply. The interface allows users to explore categorized guidance based on user ability, platform, or team role, and presents success criteria, practical examples, and implementation tips in a clear, accessible layout. It aims to shift accessibility from a static checklist to an active, usable reference for inclusive XR design.

Figure 1: Guidelines Interface Prototype

Goal

To explore how accessibility is currently approached in XR design and development, identify the barriers teams face in applying guidelines, and propose a solution that makes those guidelines easier to find, interpret, and implement in practice.

Research

I conducted 19 semi-structured interviews with a total of 21 participants:

• 10 XR creators (X1 – X10) — including designers, developers, creative technologists, and product managers working in spatial computing, XR platforms, and immersive content.
• 11 accessibility specialists (A1 – A11) — including consultants, researchers, advocates, and testers with deep experience in disability access, inclusive design, and policy.

Interviews lasted 45–60 minutes and focused on:

• How accessibility currently fits into XR workflows (if at all)
• How teams interpret and apply accessibility guidance
• What tools, processes, or roles support (or hinder) inclusive outcomes
• Where responsibility and decision-making around accessibility actually sits

The goal was not just to collect pain points, but to understand the underlying systems and team dynamics shaping accessibility efforts in XR. The interview script can be found in Appendix A.

Analysis

I used a structured way using a thematic matrix to present insights from stakeholder interviews (see Figure 2). By grouping similar responses, it highlights recurring themes across participants and brings attention to key challenges and opportunities in XR accessibility. This approach also allows for a clear comparison between the perspectives of XR creators and accessibility specialists. The sticky notes are color-coded to reflect the tone of participant quotes—red for negative, green for positive, and yellow for neutral or factual statements. This visual system helps quickly identify emotional cues and patterns across themes.

Figure 2: Thematic matrix mapping participant quotes by stakeholder group and theme. Full text of sticky notes is available in Appendix B.

Key themes that emerged from this analysis include:

• Approaches to Accessibility – Differences in when and how accessibility is integrated into XR development.
• Challenges Faced – Technical, organizational, and knowledge barriers limiting accessibility implementation.
• Existing Guidelines – The role of current accessibility standards, their limitations, and their applicability to XR.
• Perceived Need for XR Accessibility Guidelines – The demand for structured resources, toolkits, and platform-level solutions.

High v/s Low Priority Approaches to Accessibility

Participants showed a clear divide in when accessibility is prioritized. Some teams incorporate it early in the design process, treating it as foundational.

“You really want to think about accessibility before you start design because accessibility is pretty much impossible to retrofit.” – X9

“I think accessibility is not something that you can incorporate towards the end. It’s something you start working with from the very beginning.” – X3

Others, however, approach accessibility reactively—only addressing it post-launch due to client demands, limited resources, or lack of awareness.

“A lot of that type of stuff gets deprioritized because, you know, we can barely make the thing as is, let alone add the accessibility, hitting the deadline.” – X7

XR creators in particular admitted to deprioritizing accessibility under deadline pressure or due to insufficient knowledge, while accessibility specialists expressed frustration with this approach.

“It’s not that they’re not doing it because they don’t like disabled people. It’s that they just didn’t think about it.” – X9

Only a few participants reported consistently integrating accessibility from the beginning.

“Someone should be [responsible for accessibility].” – X7

Insight: Many teams treat accessibility as an afterthought due to deadlines, resource constraints, or lack of awareness.

Systematic Lack of Technical and Organizational Support

Teams face both technical and organizational barriers when trying to implement accessibility. Many lack dedicated accessibility roles, making ownership unclear.

“The roles and responsibilities are not clarified when it comes to accessibility between, like, all the different roles.” – A2

“We don’t necessarily have a dedicated accessibility engineer… we mix it into the normal engineering process.” – X6

Tools and engines often don’t support accessible design out of the box, and cross-platform conflicts further complicate implementation. Some features were added by accident rather than intention, pointing to a lack of systematic processes. Testing with users is limited for most participants, and criteria for cognitive accessibility remain especially unclear, as noted by multiple accessibility specialists.

Insight: Lack of ownership and tooling leads to fragmented and inconsistent accessibility efforts.

Need for Clear and Practical XR Guidelines

Participants widely agreed that existing guidelines like WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) are too complex and web-centric to apply cleanly to XR.

“WCAG is just so obtuse to try to read, you have to really understand accessibility to even interpret it.” – A7

While some teams attempt to use WCAG, many prefer internal, informal standards based on WCAG but are easier to act on. There’s a general understanding that guidelines are necessary, but their current form is often overwhelming or impractical.

“We’ll probably need something like how WCAG works for traditional websites.” – X2

“Unreal and Unity have accessibility guidelines… but nothing that pulls everything together.” – A1

Several noted that requirements often overlap or feel ambiguous in XR contexts. Testing was emphasized even when formal standards weren’t followed closely.

“There needs to be testing. There’s no substitute.” – X7

Insight: Teams need simpler, XR-specific guidelines that are actionable and not web-centric.

Appetite for Built-in Testing and System-Level Tools

There is strong demand for XR-specific accessibility resources that are easier to use, more visual, and context-aware. Participants requested interactive guides, code examples, and toolkits tailored to their development environments.

“Having a more standardized way of labeling things for non-developers would be really helpful.” – A4

Some suggested TLDRs or cheat sheets to lower the barrier to understanding. Several emphasized that guidelines should be built into platforms and tools, not left as external references.

“I think putting more focus on platform-level or native-level accessibility is needed” – X6

A universal, agreed-upon standard was seen as ideal but difficult to achieve. Many participants emphasized that accessibility challenges go beyond just tools and standards—it’s a multifaceted issue with no final fix.

“Accessibility will never be a ‘solved problem’.” – A9

Insight: There’s strong demand for native, easy-to-use accessibility tools within XR platforms. 

Analysis Summary

Tensions between XR creators and accessibility specialists often stemmed from differing expectations—creators favored built-in tools and ready-made solutions that could help them solve accessibility challenges swiftly, whereas accessibility specialists wanted clear, testable criteria that could make it easier to evaluate and audit XR experiences.

Both groups agreed that current tools are lacking, guidelines are insufficient, and that testing with real users is essential. There was a shared recognition that accessibility needs to be better communicated and embedded across workflows. Business priorities and tight timelines frequently push accessibility to the background. Overall, participants supported having clearer responsibilities, more intuitive resources, and built-in infrastructure support.

Guidelines Interface Prototype

Purpose & Context

The guidelines prototype was designed to help designers, developers, and testers explore XR accessibility guidelines more easily. It addresses key challenges surfaced in stakeholder interviews, including the lack of a central resource, confusion around responsibilities, and the complexity of existing standards like WCAG.

Design References & Benchmarks

As part of the early research and benchmarking process, I looked closely at existing accessibility resources to understand how guidance is currently structured and delivered. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) offered a comprehensive but often overwhelming model. Its sidebar-based structure (Figure 3) was helpful for organizing large volumes of information, but its technical depth and web-specific framing made it difficult to translate into XR contexts.

Figure 3: Screenshot of the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2. Guidelines are split into individual testable accessibility criteria.

The Game Accessibility Guidelines (GAG), in contrast, adopt a more approachable tone, presenting recommendations as clear, actionable statements (Figure 4). While GAG loosely categorizes guidelines by ability (e.g., visual, motor, cognitive), it lacks a structured way to search or filter through them, which limits discoverability when applied in practical contexts. This lack of navigability echoed feedback from participants, several of whom described the current state of accessibility guidance as “scattered” or “hard to interpret in context.”

Figure 4: Screenshot of the Game Accessibility Guidelines, showing sample accessibility solutions that could potentially support gamers with different disabilities.

References to resources for existing platforms like Unity’s accessibility package and Meta’s accessibility principles were also reviewed, but fragmented structures and lack of detailed resources in those sources validated the need for something more cohesive and informative.

Interface Prototype

To address the gaps surfaced through interviews and benchmarking, I designed a guidelines interface prototype that reframes guidelines in a more structured, approachable, and role-aware format. The goal was to make accessibility guidance easier to find, understand, and apply within real XR development workflows.

Structure & Categorization

The interface offers two primary ways of navigating guidelines:

• By Principle – Grouped according to stages or functions within an XR experience (e.g., Setup, Understand, Navigate).
• By Ability – Grouped by disability categories such as Vision, Hearing, Motor, Cognitive, and Cross-modal.

Guidelines were intentionally allowed to appear in multiple groups to support flexible discovery. Additional filters include Role (e.g., designer, developer, tester) and Platform, acknowledging gaps in responsibility awareness and platform-specific implementation issues raised during interviews.

Navigation & Interaction

Users can toggle between Ability and Principle tabs, which restructure the list of guidelines accordingly. They can also use the universal search bar to find guidelines by keyword. Filters are positioned above the content area, making them contextually visible and directly connected to the guideline list. Clicking a guideline opens a detailed view, with title, description, success criteria, accessibility relevance, and examples.

A future-facing feature includes a chat-based AI assistant, envisioned to help users ask questions and interpret guidelines more easily—especially when unsure how to apply them.

Design Iteration

The initial layout followed a three-panel grid with filters on the left, a list of guidelines in the center, and detailed content on the right (see Figure 5). However, during informal reviews and walkthroughs, it became clear that the placement of filters in a side panel made it less obvious that they were directly connected to the list of guidelines. Users didn’t intuitively associate the filters with the content they were viewing, which affected usability and discoverability.

Figure 5: Initial prototype with a 3-column structure

To address this, the layout was restructured with filters positioned above the guideline list, making their function more contextually visible and clearly tied to the content. Tabs were also introduced to switch between categorization types (by Ability and by Principle), keeping the interaction simple and reducing visual clutter.

The final prototype (Figure 6) presents a cleaner, wiki-style interface that enables XR creators to browse, filter, and understand accessibility guidelines more effectively. A dedicated section “How it helps different disabilities” was included to help creators understand the impact of each guideline, encouraging more empathetic and informed decision-making.

Figure 6: Annotated prototype highlighting core features of the interface.

Known Limitations

• Some users may want to select multiple abilities, which points to Ability potentially being better as a filter than a categorization.
• Edge case handling (e.g., filtering out a currently visible guideline) needs further definition.
• The prototype has not been user tested, and feedback from actual users is essential before making decisions about implementation.

Next Steps

This research uncovered clear gaps in how accessibility guidelines are understood, accessed, and implemented in XR workflows. The guidelines interface prototype is a foundational step toward creating a more usable, structured, and role-aware guideline system — but additional layers of exploration are needed.

Moving forward, we could:

• Validate the IA and prototype through user testing with XR creators and accessibility specialists to ensure real-world relevance.
• Explore development of a shared checklist or reporting tool, enabling teams to track, assign, and document accessibility considerations collaboratively.
• Refine how guidelines are presented, potentially shifting from static content to more interactive formats (e.g., customizable views, decision trees, AI-supported interpretation).
•  Build a platform-level strategy for how guidelines, infrastructure, and tooling can be better aligned — moving from reactive documentation to embedded support.
• Have a dedicated examples section to help creators find specific examples of what has been done before and how they can approach a particular accessibility issue.
• Continue shaping a unified, XR-specific standard, informed by lived practitioner experiences, that balances technical depth with practical usability.

This work opens a pathway not just for organizing accessibility guidelines more effectively, but for helping teams interpret and apply them with greater clarity and confidence. As the MSF continues its work on developing standardized accessibility guidelines for XR, this research offers valuable insight into how different stakeholder groups navigate, understand, and act on accessibility guidance. The prototype provides a foundation for structuring and presenting guidelines in ways that are actionable across roles.

Conclusion

This research highlights the real-world gap between the intent to build accessible XR experiences and the barriers that make it difficult in practice. While many XR creators value inclusion, challenges like unclear guidelines, time constraints, and limited collaboration with accessibility experts often get in the way.

The prototype developed as part of this work offers a starting point to address some of these gaps. By organizing existing guidelines in a clearer, more navigable format and explicitly highlighting the roles and responsibilities, it supports creators in making accessibility decisions earlier and more confidently in their workflows. While still exploratory, it lays the groundwork for future iterations and conversations, acting as both a baseline and a provocation for rethinking how accessibility guidance is delivered and used in XR. There’s still much to be done but building shared understanding and tools like these can help push the industry toward more inclusive and sustainable design practices.

Appendix A: Interview Script

Interview Script: Understanding the current state of accessibility in XR

Stakeholders: XR Creators & A11y testers

Greetings and introduction

Hi <Participant name>, How are you doing today?

Thank you for taking the time to talk to us today!

My name is Mrunmai and I’m a UX researcher at XR Access. My team is working with the Accessibility Working Group of the Metaverse Standards Forum on a project to improve accessibility in XR (virtual and augmented reality) and would love to learn about the challenges you face when creating or testing XR experiences or otherwise evaluating for accessibility. Your insights will help make XR more inclusive for all users.

Please share your honest thoughts as we go along. Do remember, there are no right or wrong answers!

Do you have any questions for me before we get started?

Before we begin, could I just confirm that you’re still okay with this session being recorded? [Wait for reply]

Awesome! I will start the recording now.

Thank you!

Questions

XR Creators

1. Can you tell me a little about your background and experience in XR?
2. What are the types of XR applications you have worked on? (e.g., VR, AR, MR, gaming, training, simulations)
3. What software or tools do you use to design or develop XR experiences?
4. When designing XR experiences, what are the key factors you prioritize?
5. At what stage in the development process do you consider accessibility?
   1. [For Sr Devs] Has that changed over time?
6. When designing/developing XR experiences, have you ever needed to consider accessibility? Was there any incident which prompted that?
   1. Which disabilities have you considered in your designs?
   2. How do you ensure users of different abilities can interact with your applications?
7. Who in your organization is responsible for accessibility? OR Who determines the priority of accessibility-related tasks, and who is responsible for approving accessibility changes?
8. Do you have any internal accessibility guidelines or best practices specific to XR?
9. Are there any people with visible disabilities on your team/in your organization? OR Have you ever worked with users with disabilities when designing an XR experience? What was that process like?
10. Have you ever had to adapt an existing XR experience to make it more accessible? If so, how did you approach it?
11. Can you share a time when making an XR experience accessible was challenging? OR Are there specific technical or design limitations that make accessibility harder to implement in XR?
12. Are there accessibility requirements from clients, stakeholders, or regulations that you have to meet?
13. Are there any accessibility-related design patterns or frameworks you follow?
    1. Have you used any existing accessibility guidelines when designing XR experiences? How helpful or challenging was it?
14. Have you found these guidelines helpful, or do they present any challenges in practical implementation?
15. What would make accessibility easier to integrate into your workflow?
16. How do you typically learn about new best practices or industry standards in XR development?
17. Is accessibility also a part of your QA tests?

Accessibility Testers

1. Can you tell me about your experience with accessibility testing?
2. Have you tested XR applications for accessibility? If yes, which types? (e.g., VR, AR, MR)
   1. What software and hardware do you use for accessibility testing in XR?
   2. Can you describe a recent experience testing an XR product?
      1. How did you determine if it is accessible?
      2. Do you follow any specific accessibility testing guidelines for XR? If yes, which ones?
      3. What are some of the most common accessibility issues you’ve identified in XR applications?
      4. Have you come across any accessibility features in XR that were well-executed?
      5. How do you typically document or report accessibility issues in XR?
      6. Are there any specific disabilities that XR applications often fail to accommodate?
3. What guidelines do you apply regarding accessibility besides WCAG?
   1. What would make your job as an accessibility tester easier when evaluating interfaces and experiences beyond WCAG?
4. Do you use any specific checklist tools for different interfaces (eg: web, mobile, XR, etc)?
   1. Are there any features you really like about those tools?
      1. Is there any tool/feature that you find difficult to use?
5. What do you do when existing accessibility guidelines don’t directly apply to the application you’re testing?
6. Is accessibility also a part of your QA tests?
7. If you could change one thing about the way accessibility is handled today, what would it be?

Closing/Thank you

These are all my questions for today!

Thank you so much for participating in this screening session. Your opinions and suggestions are important and will help us improve the accessibility in XR interfaces.

Ask if they want to join mailing list:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdZxYGXzfZumj_1xRu0J1V7gG3PLmCDj2GC8pB8SMAQB9rDRA/viewform

Is there anything else you’d like to add or any questions you have for us at this point?

Awesome! Thank you again for your participation and sharing your opinions. Have a great day!

Appendix B: Full Quotes and Insights

Figure B1: Thematic matrix mapping participant quotes by stakeholder group and theme. The sticky notes are color-coded to reflect the tone of participant quotes—red indicates negative sentiments or challenges, green highlights positive experiences or opinions, and yellow represents neutral or factual statements.

Approach to Accessibility

Challenges Faced

Guidelines and Standards

Perceived Need for XR-specific Accessibility Guidelines

The post Good Intentions, Real Barriers: Investigating Accessibility in XR Workflows appeared first on Metaverse Standards Forum.

The Metaverse Standards Forum is proud to announce the launch of its Forum Labs Initiative — a major new program designed to accelerate open cooperation and interoperability through grounded, high-impact Collaborative Projects.
As the metaverse ecosystem evolves, so does the need for real-world testing and validation of emerging standards. The Forum Labs Initiative empowers qualified member organizations to lead and participate in Collaborative Projects that span both pre-standardization exploration and post-standardization deployment — ensuring that standards development is shaped by practical experience and ready for real-world adoption.

What Is a Forum Principal Lab?

A Forum Principal Lab is a designated Principal Member with the expertise, infrastructure, and commitment to support and execute Collaborative Projects in close collaboration with Forum Working Groups. These labs play a critical role in bridging the gap between concept and deployment, providing hands-on insight and technical depth.

What Can Collaborative Projects Include?

Collaborative Projects under the Forum Labs Initiative are designed to deliver tangible, ecosystem-wide impact. Example activities include:

• Defining and testing use cases and technical requirements
• Running interoperability testbeds and plugfests
• Co-hosting webinars, workshops, and symposia
• Collaborating on grant-funded R&D proposals
• Developing and validating open tooling and resources

By enabling both early-stage exploration and testing of real-world implementations, the program helps keep metaverse standards development practical and grounded in deployment experience.

Why It Matters

For the Ecosystem: The program strengthens the foundation of the open metaverse by enabling standards to be tested, refined, and adopted in real-world conditions — increasing reliability, reducing fragmentation, and accelerating time to impact.

For Labs: Forum Principal Labs gain unique opportunities to demonstrate leadership, enhance visibility, collaborate with key stakeholders, and contribute to shaping the future of metaverse interoperability.

For the Forum: The program expands the Forum’s capacity to turn strategic goals into operational momentum — helping fulfill its mission to catalyze open and inclusive metaverse standards.

p-NET Designated as First Forum Principal Lab

p-NET has been designated as the first Forum Principal Lab under the Forum’s new initiative. Established in 2022 through a collaboration between the University of Patras, private and public sector partners, and Greece’s General Secretariat for Research and Innovation, p-NET focuses on advancing 5G/6G innovation and exploring their applications in immersive technologies.

As the inaugural Forum Principal Lab, p-NET will leverage its state-of-the-art infrastructure and research capabilities to Collaborative Projects that test and validate metaverse interoperability in real-world scenarios. Forum members and global participants will gain access to p-NET’s advanced 5G testbeds and tools — helping bridge standards development with practical, measurable outcomes.

“”The new Metaverse Standards Forum Labs Initiative will help bridge the critical gap between standards development and real-world testing,” said Neil Trevett, Forum President. “We are delighted to welcome p-NET as our first Forum Principal Lab — their advanced 5G/6G infrastructure and expertise in immersive technologies will be invaluable in validating metaverse interoperability standards in practical environments.”

“We foster innovation, entrepreneurship, and technological progress in smart network technologies while promoting digital transformation and sustainability across sectors such as culture and tourism, smart cities, education, media, and public-sector services,” said Marios Nicolaou, BD Director, p-NET. “We’re eager to investigate how interoperability requirements and emerging standards affect user experience and value chains in controlled environments — and to help quantify the benefits of standards adoption.”

Join the Movement

Forum Principal Labs will be recognized on the Forum’s website, granted the use of an official designation, and encouraged to propose and co-lead impactful projects with the Forum and its members. Each project will be guided by a transparent agreement that defines roles, deliverables, and open outcomes — with a strong focus on collaboration, real-world impact, and publicly available results that advance the open metaverse ecosystem.

This program marks a significant step forward in turning interoperability goals into collaborative, measurable progress.

Learn more about the Metaverse Standards Forum and how your organization can become a Forum Principal Lab.

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