Sarah also suggested returning to my Week 8 “Identifying Barriers” research, particularly the question I ended with:

Where does the current passenger experience break down, despite all of these existing interventions?

This feels important because I have already identified lots of things airports are doing, but I now need to show why these interventions still do not fully solve the problem.

A useful way of thinking about this is: I cannot necessarily change the external airport environment, but could design help change the traveller’s internal experience of it?

Technology

If I go down a technology route, which I feel all my research is pointing towards now, why is it that VR seems to feel like the right outcome? There are lots of types of tech, so why this? I need to investigate VR versus other technologies and properly justify why VR might offer something different.

The question should not be “how can I make an app?” There are already apps, maps, Social Stories, airport guides and journey-planning tools.

Instead, I need to ask:

• What can VR do that an app cannot?
• Does immersion allow greater sensory control?
• Could it help with regulation rather than simply giving information?
• Could it allow repetition and familiarisation in a way a normal screen cannot?
• Could an experience adapt to the individual rather than providing the same support to everyone?

This links to my research showing that autistic travellers have different and changing sensory/support needs, meaning a personalised approach may be more appropriate than one universal intervention

Why Regulation?

The reasoning needs to be clear: I have looked at current airport interventions such as sensory spaces, Sunflower schemes, Social Stories, maps and virtual tours. These can help, but there are still limitations.

Airports cannot remove every:

• delay
• gate change
• queue
• announcement
• crowd
• noise
• unfamiliar procedure
• unexpected event

Therefore, it may be unrealistic to design something that tries to remove unpredictability from air travel completely.

This leads to a different question:

If the external environment cannot always be controlled, could the autistic traveller be given more control over how they regulate within it?

This also links back to my primary research and the participant who said that Sunflower lounges can still be open and loud and not suited to individual sensory needs.

The project therefore seems to be moving towards personalised regulation rather than simply another accessibility facility.

Adaptive VR Research

Two recent papers could be particularly important:

Metaverse-Driven Immersive Therapy: Reducing Air Travel Anxiety for Individuals with Autism

This is already connected to air travel and explores immersive technology as a way of preparing autistic people for the experience of flying.

Adaptive Virtual Reality for Autism: A Heart Rate Driven Sensory Regulation System Using Large Language Models

This is especially interesting because the VR environment can potentially respond to signs of overstimulation, such as heart-rate changes, and adapt elements including sound and lighting.

The system also explores the use of an AI guide. This raises a much more personalised direction:

Could immersive technology respond to the individual rather than assuming there is one sensory environment that works for every autistic traveller?

The research is still developing, so I should treat this as an emerging precedent rather than something already proven.

Possible Gap

What I have not currently found is an airport offering something where an autistic adult can use an immersive environment during the actual airport journey for regulation.

For example: An autistic traveller enters an existing calm/shared space and can optionally use headphones or a headset to create a more personally controlled sensory environment.

This could potentially be manual or responsive to the individual.

The important idea is not necessarily that VR is the final solution, but: Could a shared airport accessibility space become individually controllable without the airport needing to create a completely separate environment for every sensory profile?

Current VR air-travel research appears to focus mainly on preparing people before travel, while adaptive VR research is looking at personalised sensory regulation in other contexts.

A potential gap may therefore exist between the two:

personalised sensory regulation during the live airport journey.

Familiarisation / Acclimatisation

Another possible use of VR is sensory familiarisation before travel.

Rather than only practising the steps of the airport journey, the experience could potentially allow someone to become familiar with particular sensations or sounds through controlled repetition.

For example:

• security scanner beeps
• airport announcements
• trays and security noise
• aircraft door sounds/hissing
• cabin noises
• engine sounds
• seatbelt chimes
• changes in lighting
• the context around take-off and ear pressure

The important distinction would be that the traveller can repeat, pause and control the experience, rather than being unexpectedly exposed to it. I need to investigate whether this would genuinely add something beyond the existing VR air-travel research.

Other Research Threads to Consider

Japan / East Asia

A more unexpected research thread could be Japan.

There appears to be a significant cultural interest in Japan among some autistic communities, so it might be worth investigating whether there is any meaningful research behind this rather than assuming it is true.

Questions could include:

• Why does Japan appear as a special interest for some autistic people?
• Is there any credible research on this?
• How do major Japanese airports approach autism/hidden-disability accessibility?
• What does Tokyo Haneda or Narita provide?
• Is there anything culturally or spatially different about East Asian airport accessibility?

This should only become a strand if there is enough evidence to make it relevant.

Airline Rather Than Airport

I could also widen the precedent research slightly and ask whether airlines themselves are doing anything more innovative.

This might reveal interventions that follow the passenger throughout the journey rather than stopping at the airport terminal.

AccessAble

Look further at:

This could be useful when considering detailed environmental accessibility information and how passengers understand spaces before entering them.

What I Need to Do Next

1. Go back through the three main research questions and place the strongest evidence underneath each one.
2. Return to the Week 8 question: where does the passenger journey still break down despite current interventions?
3. Clearly explain why existing solutions are not enough before introducing VR.
4. Research VR versus apps/other technology so I can justify why immersion might offer something genuinely different.
5. Look more closely at the two adaptive/air-travel VR papers.
6. Investigate regulation during the live journey versus familiarisation before the journey as two separate possibilities.
7. Briefly investigate Japan/East Asia and airlines for any genuinely unusual accessibility precedents.
8. Then begin triangulating the primary research, secondary research and precedents to identify the actual design problem.

Key thought from the meeting

The direction is becoming less about: “How can I make airports less overwhelming?”

and more about:

“If the airport cannot always adapt to every individual or every unexpected event, how might design give an autistic traveller greater control over their own regulation?”

That feels like the clearest thread coming out of today's meeting.