Immersive Augmented Reality Experience for Sports Trainers: Understanding Athletes with Visual Disabilities

Today’s sports technicians are tasked with adapting to a modern, diverse, and pluralistic society engaged in sporting activities. This brings about the necessity for quality services related to physical activity and sport for people with disabilities. This project aims to enhance the knowledge and competence of trainers of athletes with disabilities through the integration of immersive technologies in an eLearning platform. The primary result of the project is a mobile augmented reality application, which, in combination with a headset, simulates the experiences of athletes with visual impairments. This immersive approach allows trainers to gain a better understanding of the nuances of visual disabilities in sports. Although the user feedback indicated areas for improvement such as dizziness and discomfort from the headset, the project demonstrated the potential of combining educational technology, digital transformation, and immersive technology for a more inclusive sports training approach. This initiative significantly contributes to the field of disability sports training, paving the way for future research focused on refining the user experience and expanding this approach to other disabilities and sports.