GDC 2006 Roundtable
International Game Developers Association
Table of contents |
[edit] Title
Increasing the Accessibility of Your Game
[edit] Time/Place/ETC
Speaker: Michelle Hinn (Doctoral Candidate, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)
Date/Time: TBD
Track: IGDA
Format: 60-minute Roundtable
Experience Level: All
[edit] Abstract
The focus of the IGDA Game Accessibility Special Interest Group (SIG) has been to research how to make commercial games more accessible to persons with disabilities and to serve as an outreach to game developers interested in facing the challenges of creating accessible design. Since increasing game accessibility expands the target group of your game, it should be considered a financially important factor. It also enhances the user experience since it is focused on making the game interface easier to use and can provide all gamers with new game experiences, such as relying more on sound cues as a navigation strategy. Finally, there is a social responsibility that should be taken seriously by the game industry as a whole to include all kinds of users in gaming and game development just as other entertainment sectors have, such as the movie industry.
But maybe you, the developer of “Grand Mario Super Katamari Tetris Kingdom,” do want to create more accessible games but are not sure where to even start. Frustrated at not knowing where to turn, you ask “are there a couple concrete steps that I can take to get started? What are my options and how can I tackle them?”
Guess what? You are in luck! The goal of this roundtable is to discuss the Game Accessibility SIG’s “Top Ten” list—a list of the top ten items a game developer can do to start increasing the accessibility of their game with minimal effort on their part and without greatly hampering (and perhaps even improving) general game play. Although the “Top Ten” list is by no means a total solution for creating games that are “accessible for all,” it is set of guidelines and design features that will help game developers create games that are “accessible to more.”
[edit] Intended Audience
Designers, programmers, and publishers interested in learning about game accessibility techniques and increasing accessibility for game consumers and potential game consumers.
[edit] Idea Takeaway
Attendees will learn ten concrete ways (and maybe a few more to boot!) to increase the accessibility of their games in order begin meeting the needs of gamers and potential gamers with disabilities.
[edit] Bio of Discussion Leader
Michelle Hinn is completing her doctorate at the University of Illinois and is currently co-teaching a course on video game design. She has a B.A. in Music Performance, a B.S. in Psychology, and a M.A. in Multimedia Design. Hinn has worked at Microsoft Game Studios where she focused on piloting usability tests for Xbox multiplayer games. Additionally, she has worked for Computer Sciences Corporation, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), and the University of Nevada at Reno. She is the co-editor of the 2001 book “Visions of Quality: How Evaluators Define, Understand, and Represent Program Quality” (published by Elsevier Science) and is on the editorial board of the Computers in Entertainment Magazine, a publication of the Association for Computing Machinery. Hinn has also authored several award-winning papers on the topic of universal accessibility from organizations such as the American Evaluators Association and the International Visual Literacy Association.
