[games_access] Peanuts from The Peanut Gallery - Top 10 Accessibility Features List

[Barrie Ellis]

Hi Tim,

Good work. A few questions and thoughts:

>    1. allow all controls (mouse, keyboard, gamepad)
> to be remapped

Don't know quite how to word it, but it would also be very helpful if 
multiple functions could be remapped to individual buttons. E.g. with 
pinball, being able to make one button act as both flippers and the plunger 
can be very helpful. Perhaps, "...with the facility to map multiple 
functions to any button if required.".

>    2. add closed-captioning for all dialog and important
> sound-effects
>    3. provide help files in an accessible format
> (HTML or plain-text)

Great, but what about console games? Perhaps on-line, downloadable 
instructions in HTML / plain-text?


>    4. provide variable degrees of aiming
> assistance/auto-targeting

What about making this broader, as this sounds targetted (forgive the pun 
limping away) at FPS. What about simply "provide assist modes or training 
options", as this would cover all.


>    5. provide a broad range of difficulty levels from
> incredibly simple to difficult
>    6. make interface fonts scalable
>    7. allow for high-contrast color schemes
>    8. add audio tags to all significant elements (actors,
> doors, items, resulting actions, etc) in true
> spatial 3D audio


>    9. allow for time-scaling

Not sure what this means. Would this be the same as "Speed Control options"?


>   10. Reid's suggestion of Accessibility symbols/info on packaging and 
> promo web-sites?


As for the format, what about an A4 page split into two halves. One being in 
an Inaccessible format, and the other in a more accessible format?

The inaccessible Top 10 could have a mix of blurred writing, obscure foreign 
text, tiny or squashed/stretched fonts, nasty colour combinations such as 
yellow text on white.

The accessible Top 10 could be clear text (e.g. Arial font size 12 or 
bigger), black on white, with a web-link for the Top 10 list in greater 
detail, with a symbol / photo or two to emphasise what the list is about?

A4 would be easy to photocopy/print out from hard copies distributed at GDC, 
but I think we should also get an version on line that people can spread by 
downloading, e-mailing, and printing straight out.

Cheers,

Barrie
www.OneSwitch.org.uk