A few years ago, I was giving a tour of George Mason University to a prospective student that ended abruptly due to a chronic illness flare. The student mentioned that they had wanted to see the inside of several campus buildings like the classrooms and dining halls, and that they wished there was an option for touring colleges with virtual reality or watching narrated videos to get more information about campus, as this would provide more opportunities for them to explore campus and learn more about campus accessibility. Even though they weren’t up for walking around campus at that moment, I was able to finish the tour and show them these places through the YouVisit platform and their virtual college tours, which helped solidify their decision to attend GMU the next fall.
Here are my tips for touring colleges with virtual reality using the free YouVisit platform, from my perspective as a student with low vision.
Overview of YouVisit
YouVisit is a virtual tour platform that specializes in 3D walking tours of colleges and universities from around the world, including several locations here in Virginia. Each virtual tour incorporates 360-degree videos, photos, audio, and traditional video content with narration (and accompanying transcripts) that showcases campus buildings, academics, and student experiences on campus.
While YouVisit tours can be accessed with an optional VR headset, all content can be viewed directly from the web browser on a tablet, computer, or phone. No software downloads are required, and users can view tours without creating an account. YouVisit is available at any time of day or night, and tours are asynchronous (not live) and self-paced.
Related links
- College Search: Virtual College Tours, Virtual Reality Education (youvisit.com)
- Touring Colleges With A Blindness Cane: College O&M
- Places Every Visually Impaired Student Should Visit On College Tours
Benefits of touring colleges with virtual reality and virtual college tours
In addition to saving money on travel costs, touring colleges with virtual reality offer several benefits for prospective students, especially those with chronic illnesses or fluctuating disabilities. Benefits of virtual college tours include:
- Touring colleges and universities that students may not have otherwise considered or that they couldn’t travel to in-person for a tour.
- Visiting buildings that may not be part of the typical tour, such as academic buildings or event centers.
- Complete tours across multiple sessions— students can take breaks when navigating virtual college tours and return to the website any time.
- Students don’t have to plan tours around the weather, time of day, or temperatures.
- Option to zoom in on images and videos to explore visual details of a space, which may be otherwise hard to see.
Even though I have been a student at GMU for years now, I used YouVisit to see what the classrooms look like inside of an unfamiliar building, which was helpful when I found out I would have a class there a few semesters later— I already knew what the classroom looked like and had an idea of where I would need to sit to see the professor.
Related links
- Ten Questions to Ask When Choosing a College
- Disability and Classroom Accommodations For Chiari Malformation
- Disability and Classroom Accommodations For POTS
- Preferential Seating and Low Vision
How to access a virtual tour on YouVisit
On the Tour page of the YouVisit website, users can explore tours for colleges and universities from all over the world, with the option to search for a specific institution or location. I found out about the GMU tour through a link on the Admissions website.
After selecting a tour, users are prompted to fill out an optional survey that uses AI to personalize their tour experience and share additional contact information to get on the institution’s mailing list. After filling out the information (or closing the pop-up), a narrative audio track introduces the institution. Accompanying the narrative track is a 360-degree video that users can explore by either dragging their mouse/finger across the screen or moving their tablet/phone/VR device to explore the surrounding area. Users can also select videos, images, or other elements in the 360-degree video to get a closer look at something or view more in-depth information.
While tours between colleges can vary, all of the virtual college tours I explored included the following locations, along with additional campus-specific resources:
- Student center
- Campus landmark, such as a statue
- At least one residence hall, usually a freshman dorm
- Outdoor area
- Dining hall
- Classrooms
- Arena/performing arts center
- Surrounding areas on campus
Narration and sound can be turned off by selecting the speaker icon in the lower left corner, and a small transcript will be displayed in its place. Users can also navigate to different parts of campus by selecting locations on the interactive map.
Related links
- George Mason University on YouVisit
- Campus Addresses Every Student Should Know: College O&M
- Building Identification: College O&M
YouVisit accessibility view: accessible college tours with virtual reality
Every virtual college tour on YouVisit has the option to enable Accessibility View, which is designed for use with additional accessibility features such as a screen reader, single-column layout for text and images, and options for enlarging text with browser zoom. Accessibility View can be activated at any point during a virtual college tour by selecting the accessibility icon on the bottom right or at the bottom center of the screen, which looks like a person inside of a circle.
YouVisit’s Accessibility View offers the following features for their virtual tours:
- Support for screen readers/text-to-speech for reading text out loud.
- Support for screen magnification, including browser zoom for resizing text and images.
- High resolution images with alt text.
- 360-degree images that can be magnified via pinch-to-zoom (also available outside of accessibility view).
- Auto-play turned off for videos.
- Transcripts and captioning for all videos
- Transcripts of narration for virtual tour, which can be read in a single-column layout and copy/pasted if desired.
For users with low vision, my personal recommendation is to view the YouVisit tours on either a tablet (e.g. iPad) or computer that can be placed within the field of vision. I also recommend using gestures like dragging to view 360-degree video instead of moving the device itself for users that are prone to vertigo or that have motion sensitivities/vestibular issues, as moving the device too fast may be disorienting.
Related links
- How To Create High Resolution Images For Low Vision
- How To Make Virtual Museums Accessible For Visual Impairments
- Purposes of Media Descriptions for Visual Impairment
- Creating Audio Description For College Fight Song
More ideas for virtual college tours and touring colleges with virtual reality
- College websites and social media accounts often include video tours of more specific areas on campus, such as dorm buildings, parts of a classroom building, and department tours. Many platforms support the use of pinch-to-zoom to further enlarge videos.
- Student-created resources or social media hashtags/pages often offer less “filtered” images and videos of different areas on campus. For example, the unofficial Reddit page for my college had photos of dorm configurations that aren’t usually included on tours for prospective students, like single dorms.
- In addition to asynchronous tours offered by YouVisit, many institutions also offer live-streamed tours that provide the opportunity for students to ask questions to a tour guide.
- Wondering how to get from one building to another? GPS applications can be useful for learning more about campus without having to physically be there— learn more in Accessible Maps and Wayfinding Tools For Low Vision and Using GPS Apps On College Campuses: College O&M
Published January 10, 2019. Updated June 2023