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Accessibility for Video Games

Posted on September 20, 2006 in Technology by Mod7

 

Microsoft's Developer Network has a great article on the business case for making games as accessible as possible  to those with disabilities. Here are some excerpts relevant to some of the work we're doing (images/photos from Gamasutra reprint of Microsoft 2006 Gamefest presentation):

Accessibility features generally tend to serve one of five types of disabilities:
  • Vision - Blindness, inability to distinguish colors, blurred Vision, etc.
  • Hearing - Hard-of-hearing, deafness.
  • Speech - Speech impairments, language differences.
  • Mobility - Wrist, arm, leg, and hand impairments.
  • Cognitive - Learning impairments and reasoning challenges, including dyslexia.

In the context of video games, adding accessibility means making a title usable to someone with one of these disabilities.

On why accessibility is important:
Researchers at the Wheeling Jesuit University recently discovered that playing...games helps distract children and young adults suffering from chronic pain (The Edmonton Journal, Feb 13th 2006). Furthermore, video games have been proven to help children facing surgery more effectively-and with fewer side effects-than tranquilizers (The Associated Press, Dec 19th 2004). Games are even being used for cancer treatment; exercise, vitally important to recovery after chemotherapy, has been encouraged through the use of games such as Dance Dance Revolution(c) when children refuse to participate in other forms of physical activity.

...allowing people with impairments (especially children) to participate in activities that most individuals enjoy and take for granted can help reduce emotional pain and the feeling of being an outsider.


And some less-altruistic reasons:
Accessibility features can increase sales by encouraging people with disabilities to buy an accessible title... the positive P.R. from the media as well as accessibility advocacy groups provides free advertising.
Visual impairments
8.7% of the male population is affected by some level of color blindness...Another 1.2% of individuals are affected by more severe forms of visual impairment

Steps and features that can improve the gaming experience for "both gamers with normal vision and gamers with a visual impairment":
  1. Test titles on black and white televisions. Note any instances where items, players, objectives, and commands can't be distinguished and adjust your color palette accordingly.
  2. Give gamers an option to increase the size of text on their screen. Also provide the capability to change the scrolling rate of text. It is important to remember that that the console experience is 10-foot, not the 2-foot gaming experience many PC developers are used to. Even for gamers with no vision problems, small UI and text can be difficult to read at long distances.
  3. Provide text-to-speech features that can voice all game text, including game menus that track focus on buttons. Allow the user to control the speed, pitch, and gender of the voice. To help prevent text-to-speech from being drowned out by other game noises, give users the ability to adjust the volume of speech, ambient noise, active game sounds, and music. Also, include the option to play distinct sounds when transitioning through menu items and over buttons.
  4. Finally, give gamers the option to change brightness and contrast settings in- game. Provide users with the ability to choose their own custom color schemes so that text, background, and HUD colors can be custom configured to suit an individual's needs.
Auditory Impairments
In the U.S. alone, over 28 million people are affected by some sort of hearing impairment. While hearing impairments are often associated with age, 17 out of every 1,000 children under the age of 18 are affected with a hearing impairment...

Steps and feattures to "make your game usable and enjoyable for gamers with normal hearing and for gamers who have an auditory impairment":
  1. Close caption all dialogs. This includes in-game content and cinematics. Give the gamer the ability to turn these captions on and off.
  2. When a sound effect delivers vital information, provide a textual or tactile (vibration) mechanism for feedback as well. For example, if normally a bomb in your game makes a faster beeping noise close to its explosion, provide a visual indicator (such as a time bar) that also allows the gamer to know how much time is left before the explosion.
  3. If your game supports online play, give gamers the option to send text messages as well as use their voice to deliver information amongst team members and other online players. A headset is not useful to an individual who can't hear and, more and more, players are looking to play with other individuals with whom they can communicate and strategize online.

 Doom CC (unofficial mod that adds close captioningMobility Impairments

Imagine that you are a gamer:

With no mobility impairment: The game controller has so many buttons, you (as a casual gamer) are intimidated and you don't want to learn how to use it.

With a temporary mobility impairment: You have a broken thumb so you can't use the thumbstick on your controller. You have a broken leg so you can't use the dance pad for a dancing title.

With a permanent and severe mobility impairment: You have lost an arm so you cannot use a two handed controller. You have Parkinson's disease, your hands shake, and that makes you accidentally trigger buttons on the controller. You are paralyzed from the neck down so you cannot use a standard game controller at all.

...some easy things you can keep in mind when developing your games.

  1. Minimize button use and think more about menu interfaces for commands. This is particularly useful for individuals who may be missing digits or a hand. It is also useful for paralyzed individuals who use custom controllers.
  2. Allow gamers to customize their controller configuration and button/thumbstick sensitivity. This will allow individuals who have fine motor skills problems customize the controller to minimize the impact their disability has on game play. It also allows for better support of custom controllers for the disabled.
  3. If your game utilizes a specific type of peripheral (dance pad, light gun, etc.), allow other controllers to perform the same functions. For instance, a game such as Dance Dance Revolution(c) allows even wheelchair-restricted individuals to play along with their friends through the use of a regular hand- held controller.
At this point, you might be thinking that you couldn't possibly accommodate all of these gamers in all of these scenarios. And even if you were to implement every suggestion in this paper, you couldn't ensure that a title would be completely accessible to everyone. But by following these accessibility guidelines, you can make your title much more appealing to the accessibility community. And that can only increase sales.

To make a title more accessible, developers and publishers need to find people with various types of disabilities to usability test their games. This approach provides first-hand information about whether or not a game is accessible for a certain audience. As an added benefit, having diverse development and testing resources can offer additional insights that can improve game play for all gamers. Most importantly, engage the accessibility community and get to know these potential customers. Hold a game bash for your title at a local deaf service center, children's hospital, or veteran's center. Encourage developers and testers to volunteer with local organizations that work with the disabled, to take a sign language class, or to sign up for accessibility-related newsletters to keep up with the community. Solicit feedback on previous titles from disabled-gamers at local schools and colleges.

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