Accessibility is a crucial part of gaming for millions of players around the world—and it's just as important for developers. So how do we make it happen? In this blog post, we'll share expert advice from an upcoming GDC Showcase speaker on why and how to bring accessibility to the forefront of your games.
This is part of an ongoing series of advice columns, guest posts from industry leaders, and other resources designed to help game developers in their careers. Read the full series here.
Cari Watterton, senior accessibility designer at Rebellion, will be hosting a talk at GDC Showcase called "Inclusive Design Workshops: Weaving Accessibility into Workflows." Cari's virtual session will show developers how to teach and implement accessibility in their teams, improving game quality and fostering an inclusive workplace. After this talk, participants will have the tools and skills to run their own workshops to boost accessibility in their studios.
Cari has written a guest post for GDC, which you can read below, highlighting key things developers should understand about accessibility.
Are you looking to weave accessibility into your workflow, whether to improve your game, team, or hiring chances? Join Cari Watterton at GDC Showcase this September, as he'll be speaking on game accessibility during our two-day intensive virtual event and workshop all about finding success as a game developer. Designed for students, leaders, and everyone in between. Only $49! It's happening September 19-20, all online.
Sign Up For GDC Showcase Here (Only $49!)
3 Reasons Why Accessibility Is Important For Any Discipline
Written by Cari Watterton (edited for length and clarity)
1. Accessibility is for Everyone
Disabled players account for 31% of US gamers and 29% of players in the UK—but accessibility doesn’t just mean disability. Many impairments aren’t registered disabilities, like color blindness. Impairments can also be temporary, such as having a broken arm meaning you might have to play one-handed. And playing in a loud room means audio won’t be as easy to hear, which is a situational impairment.
Generally, accessibility features are used by all players. For example, in Sniper Elite 5, 96% of players used subtitles and 97% used aim assistance.
Accessibility is also important for yourself and your team members. Beyond the game you’re making, considering accessibility in your tools, training and workplace help to foster a work environment that matches the individual capabilities of your team members. My talk will touch on some of the accessibility improvements I made to the training workshop, which can be applied to any training session.
2. Accessibility Takes an Army
Accessibility touches every discipline in different ways; from ensuring different art or UI assets aren’t only color-based, to building an audio navigation system with code, level design, and audio disciplines. It often can’t just be one person’s job to "do" accessibility, and it requires the support of the team. And this is where "accessibility champions" come in.
For example, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown reached new accessibility innovations with its memory shards, alongside a suite of other great features. Despite not having a dedicated accessibility role, senior game designer Rémi Boutin attributed the game's success in accessibility to their mantra that “Everyone is part of the accessibility team.”
By spending some time learning about accessibility and how it affects your discipline, it helps give yourself an edge in the job market. One of the best ways to learn more is to reach out to the accessibility community and speak to lived experience experts.
3. It's Not as Hard as You Might Think
Accessibility is often misinterpreted to mean extra work or huge scope impacts, but this isn’t strictly true. Large standalone features like Menu Narration or Control Remapping are those such things, but a lot of other guidelines can be met with minimal impact on scope and cost through "Inclusive Design."
Inclusive Design is a practice where accessibility is woven into workflows and doesn’t become an afterthought, which greatly reduces retrofitting. It can include things like: setting up guidelines for a discipline to follow, such as UI artists ensuring they don’t use color alone to differentiate things, or checking contrast as they go on their concepts to ensure contrast standards are met. Weaving these small checks into a standard review process helps to ensure these highly attainable accessibility goals are met naturally, without the need for extra work or last-minute changes.
My talk is about running an inclusive design workshop that is suitable for any game development discipline. It will show you a method of getting your team to think about accessibility and barriers through practical activities and help them to apply it directly to their own work.
Make sure to join Cari Watterton and several other game experts at the all-virtual GDC Showcase, happening this September!
Register Here (Only $49!)
GDC is going virtual for its 2024 GDC Showcase, all about career development! For more information, be sure to visit our website and follow the #GDCShowcase hashtag on social media.
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