Welcome to the Floreo Engineering Corner, a column for our newsletter where our engineers delve into topics related to the design behind Floreo's app.

This week, we will look at some of the efforts we’ve been taking to address accessibility.

As we discussed in an earlier Engineering Corner, gaze fixation is the primary method for learners to interact with objects. However, we recognize that this can pose challenges for individuals with mobility restrictions, such as turning their head or turning their body all the way around to face the other direction. To make the learning experience more inclusive, all cards built after 2021 now offer Coaches the option to skip the fixation state. This allows Learners who may have difficulty with gaze fixation to continue to enjoy the rest of the lesson without penalty.

A second point we’re addressing is for Learners who experience motion sickness when the player is expected to move within the scene. We’ve found that our current solution where the Learner slides along the environment to their destination can be uncomfortable. So, for cards built within the past two years, we’ve created the option for the Coach to skip to the destination, which will teleport the Learner by fading their screen, skipping the journey in between.

Finally, we’re also becoming more methodical about including characters who have a visible disability as central characters who contribute equally along with the others in the scene. For example, in several of our newly released play lessons, the learner gets to interact with several new characters, one of whom is in a wheelchair.

Stay tuned for the next edition of the Floreo Engineering Corner!