Summary (9/12 – 9/18)

• Met with SME Kate Gonzalez and Morgan Baker to discuss current game accessibility practice;
• Proposed and discussed several possible directions for the project, broke down and analyzed each of them to see the pros and cons;
• Researched hardware and made purchases;
• Had our 1/4 walkaround with ETC faculties and organized the feedback.

Design

We invited Kate Gonzalez and Morgan Baker from EA Positive Play Group to give us a talk on game accessibility. During the meeting, we talked about various topics, like the stats of disability players, the medical model versus the social model of disability, what game accessibility means, and some common accessibility issues with games. They also provided us with some online resources. We include the link to the resources at the end of this blog.

Programming

• Decided which hardware to use and purchased them

Accessibility Contact List

1/4 Walkaround Feedback

Publicity:

• New Archive specializes in Accessibility
• Refer to Shapetopia
• Wilder influence/social influence

Experimental:

• Experiment which model works / after vs early a11y
• Paper – review, formats

Generalize vs Subset?

Trade-off:

• Design, global, versions
• eg. 1-hand control vs 2-hands

Examples:

• Halo (Design of control)
• Valve
• Eyedeal (Previous ETC project)
• EmotionShop (Previous ETC project on mini game rapid prototyping)

Resources for Game Accessibility Design

Game accessibility guidelines | A straightforward reference for inclusive game design

AbleGamers Knowledge Base – The AbleGamers Charity

Xbox Accessibility Guidelines – Microsoft Game Dev | Microsoft Learn

How Accessible Were 2021’s Games? – YouTube

How Accessible Were 2020’s Biggest Games? – YouTube

Improving Games for Those with Cognitive Disabilities | Designing for Disability – YouTube

Accessible related videos in GDC Vault

Game Accessibility CONFERENCE

SpecialEffect DevKit spotlights motor accessibility | SpecialEffect