Building Guidelines & Best Practices for Accessible Games

Building Guidelines
& Best Practices for
Accessible Games
Eleanor Robinson : 7-128 Software
&
Tara Tefertiller Voelker : IGDA Game Accessibility SIG

www.gamesforhealth.org

In this session:
•Game Accessibility Basics Crash Course
•Simple accessibility features for any title
•Examples from AAA games
•Handing it over to Eleanor
•Guidelines for Blind Gamers
•Discussion


What I’m Playing...


Game accessibility

What are the numbers? How many Americans have a
disability?


54 million Americans
•They represent almost 20% of the population, or 1 in 5.

•3.3 million Americans use a wheel chair, with another 10
million using a cane, crutches or walker.

•.7.8 million have difficulty reading printed words and letters

•1 million can t hear conversations and 4.8 wear hearing aids.

•16.1 million have limitations with cognitive functions or a
mental or emotional illness that interferes with daily activities
http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/p70-117.pdf
http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/cb10-ff13.html


Don t forget the baby boomers.
About 40% of Americans 65 and older have at
least 1 disability.

Casual & Family Gaming

One day, you ll be old, too.


What can you do?
Provide features that can help
everyone.

Here s a list of the 10 most
popular accessibility features in
today s AAA titles.


Subtitles and Closed Captions
On screen text for all spoken words or important sounds,
including speech during gameplay, not just cut scenes.

7.8 Million with
hearing troubles,
and 1 million deaf
in America.


Remappable Controls
Allowing the player to assign the game s controls to the button
they choose

People with certain
physical disabilities,
custom controllers,
arthritis, and many
more


Additional Control Options
Analog stick sensitivity, look inversion, horizontal inversion, south
paw controls, etc

Lefties, one handed
gamers, custom
controllers, arthritis,
other gamers with
disabilities and many
more


Multiple Difficulty Levels
From complete noob to veteran, can also include various levels of speeds

New gamers, elderly
gamers, gamers with
certain physical or
cognitive disabilities


Calling out important items/ Highlighting paths
Making quest items high contrast, having in-game GPS

Gamers with low
vision, new gamers,
elderly gamers,
gamers with certain
cognitive disabilities


Color Blind friendly
Including red-green, and blue-yellow color blind

Approximately 10%
of all males are
colorblind


High Contrast Mode / Turning
off Backgrounds

Gamers with low visibility,
with crappy PCs


Training Mode and Tutorials
To allow people to adjust to playing with their skills and
equipment, and help them through the game

New gamers, elderly
gamers, gamers with
certain physical or
cognitive disabilities,
gamers with custom
controllers, etc


Assistive Modes
Auto aim, enemy lock on, auto-centering

New gamers, elderly
gamers, gamers with
certain physical or
cognitive disabilities,
gamers with custom
controllers, etc


Provide Documentation in an accessible format
Have manuals available online as PDFs or plain text

Visually impaired
gamers, gamers who
misplace things easily


Now just because these are the most popular
doesn t mean they address everything.
* For PC titles, label all the controls so that
screen readers can speak the label

* Add specific help for any "hot key" option
available to the player.

* Variable font size in any game that has
written dialogue or cut scenes.

igda-gasig.org

The best choice is to be
flexible.

Give the player options.


2 minute video to show
what I mean.


Even then, not everything
is covered, so
Off to Eleanor!


Blind Computer Games

What does it take to make computer software
accessible to people who are blind or visually impaired


www.blindcomputergames.com
A website for:
Blind Gamers to refer developers to who want to
make their games more accessible

Developers who need accessibility information.

Anyone who is looking for information about games
for blind or visually impaired gamers.


Features
 Guidelines for developing computer games for blind
gamers
 Technical how to articles to help gamers
approach developers and developers understand
blind gamer needs
 Example games
 Links to our top 25 websites lists


Accommodations
 Tab order left to right, top to bottom. Also, not
missing any controls.

 Focus is critical all controls, menu items, images
and tables should speak when they gain focus.
Context is all!

 Font size should be variable. Contrast is important.


More Accommodations
 Ensure background music and sounds can be turned
off.

 Help screens need to be spoken and traversable by
keyboard.

 Use punctuation since screen readers and speech
synthesis use it for inflection.


Control Panel


Captions


Big Type


Conclusion
 It is possible to add accessibility accommodations to
many more games than currently have them.
 It broadens the market to silver gamers today.
 The same things that make a game accessible, make
it better for everyone.
 There are developers out there that are currently
doing it.


Break for Discussion
• Alternate ways of representing information based on graphics.
•What will "silver gamers" need to let them continue to play games
•What types of accessibility accommodations will improve game play for
non-disabled players
•One button mode
•Alternate ways of representing information based by sound (besides
close captions)
•The issues Kinect can pose to those with certain physical limitations
•Kinect and sign language
• Addressing cognitive disabilities


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