Gamasutra.com - Making Video Games Accessible: Business Justifications and Design Considerations


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By Brannon Zahand
[Author's Bio]
Gamasutra
September 20, 2006

Making Video Games Accessible: Business Justifications and Design Considerations

Introduction
Importance?
The Need
Visual Impairment
Auditory Impairment
Mobility Impairment
Vocal / Conclusion

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Making Video Games Accessible: Business Justifications and Design Considerations

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Visual Impairments

"My presentation was followed by a lively question and answer session, and one notable moment occurred when one of the staffers asked a question about accessibility in [our] games... this 28-year-old staffer is an avid gamer who used to play [our game] with a wide circle of friends. Because he is color blind, however, it was hard for him to tell the good guys from the bad guys and the game finally became too frustrating. When the new version... came out and [we] hadn't fixed the problem, he and his friends all decided to buy a competitor's game instead."—an anonymous industry executive

PopCap's Astropop, as seen through different levels of visual impairment. Can you easily tell the difference between the tiles in each of these?

The term "visual impairment" often brings to mind someone who is completely blind. However, it is startling to know that 8.7% of the male population is affected by some level of color blindness ("How do people inherit colorblindness? How often?," WebExhibits.org). Another 1.2% of individuals are affected by more severe forms of visual impairment ("Disability Info: Visual Impairments Fact Sheet," National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities). That means almost one out of every ten potential gamers have issues affecting their eyesight that can impact their gaming experience.

To help you understand visual impairment issues, imagine that:

You Are A Gamer	And You Are In This Scenario
With normal vision	It is bright and sunny so you can't see dark objects on your screen.
	You have an old television set so you can't see small objects and text because of poor picture quality.
With impaired vision	Some game text is so small you can't read it.
	You are color blind so you don't know which button to press when the game tells you to press the red button.

With a few simple steps and features, you can address these issues and improve the gaming experience for both gamers with normal vision and gamers with a visual impairment.

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.
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.
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.
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.

AstroPop again, with its Brick Overlay option enabled. The tiles are now easily distinguished by players of all visual impairment varieties.

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