Is second life accessible for people with severe physical disabilities? Results from two experiments

Second Life (SL), one of the popular virtual environments, has been regarded as the new e-learning platform. However, people with disabilities might meet difficulties when interact with SL because of the complex operating methods. In order to evaluate the accessibility of Second Life, this study conducted a simulated experiment first to explore the effectiveness of using three popular adaptive computer devices to execute tasks in SL. Then this study adopted a single case experiment to investigate if the people with severe physical impairment could complete the required tasks by using their equipped adaptive devices. The results of the two experiments indicated that people could use the adaptive devices to complete the required tasks in the SL.