The Oculus Go Wasn’t Designed for Black Hair

Here’s how I designed a prototype to fix it

Images courtesy of the author

In January 2020, I ran an in-person experiment for my thesis at the MIT Media Lab. The project, called Allo-I, is a virtual reality human interaction study that centers the lives and experiences of Black women — specifically, Kenyan women living in informal settlements in Nairobi. As far as I know, it’s the first research of its kind, and I wanted to understand how the participants interact with novel technologies like virtual reality (VR) and the content within them and tested to see whether the technology can result in more imaginative thinking about the future.

The study had 220 participants, half of whom participated in a VR experience. For the study, I used the Oculus Go device by Facebook. I chose that device because it was easy to use and lightweight. I can use the device anywhere and pre-downloaded all my content so that Wi-Fi wouldn’t be an issue. From an accessibility perspective, the Go felt like the right decision. But that was before I realized that Black hair was going to be a major issue for the completion of my work.

Over the course of running the study, it became overwhelmingly apparent that the Oculus Go (and, I would imagine, any other high-definition VR headset for that matter) was not designed with Black women in mind. The texture, size, and styling of Black hair was not suitable for the device, and the strap attachment piece kept pulling out at the joints from extensive stretching.

I had four headsets for the study that participants used 25 times on average, and each headset “broke” approximately 10 times during the study. This means that the headset strap snapped nearly half the times that a participant tried to use it.

Source: The VR Shop

It’s not that African women have uniquely big heads. It’s that they have uniquely big hair that includes but is not limited to braids, twists, locs, head wraps, and hijabs. Again, not everyone wearing braids or a hijab couldn’t put on the headset. But depending on the texture of the hair or how it was tied (or how it was hidden), a good number of participants either couldn’t wear the headset or struggled significantly to put it on. While the headset never permanently broke since the joints could be reattached, the reattaching takes significant effort and shows a hole in the design system.

The Oculus Go system is designed to be a light headset that can be used by anyone in the comfort of their home. Its design has been structurally sound for most people, except for one specific demographic. The straps go on the side of the headset and around the head. A little space has been created that serves a double purpose: extra support and a space for a little ponytail. Because headsets are heavy, a third strap is added from the middle of the headset to the back for balance.

In my study, the straps were often extended beyond their stretching limits, pulling off the strap connector from the socket on one or both sides of the headset. By the time I was halfway through the study, I’d learned my lesson and removed the middle strap that goes over the center of the head and meets the second strap at the back. The strap connector could be reattached, and in cases where the whole strap system was not functional, I asked the participants to hold the device to their face and ignore the straps, which, for obvious reasons, may have affected the feeling of immersion and embodiment, therefore affecting the study. While I couldn’t take photographs of the participants, I’ve included some images of example hairstyles to demonstrate how and why the headsets kept failing.

from Hacker News https://ift.tt/3eVV8br