[games_access] Teaching Game Accessibility

[Thomas Christopher Roome]

Hi Michelle, I would be happy to try to work with the IGDA game 
curriculum committee to get something more official from the SIG out 
there assuming that they will listen to a student that is beginning to 
learn game design?     I understand some of the problems that people 
with disabilities face in games.  I would need support from others on 
the list to cover every need as possible and make sure the "accessible 
ideas" really work in games.  It is one thing to say " the game should 
allow different input devices to interact with the game", but we need 
to tell the developer how this can be done and when should it be done 
in the game development!  Do you agree with me? I have read the 
guidelines and even I got lost in what it was saying, and no where does 
is tell you what needs to be done to make something work.  There have 
to be a differences between games programing on the PC and Xbox or PS2 
platforms and that should be address. Give me some feedback everyone?  


d. michelle hinn wrote:


>Hey Tom,
>
>Yes, this is a great point and there are some that are including it 
>into game coursework somehow, even if it's not an entire course on 
>it. I agree that getting to people while they are learning about 
>design and making it into something expected for doing well in a 
>course will only increase our odds that we'll start seeing 
>accessibility as something much more mainstream.
>
>I have included the topic as part of a game design course and even 
>courses on adolescent psychology and Kevin Bierre on this list from 
>RIT has also done the same in his courses (Kevin can say more on 
>this!). There's a whole bunch of us on this list that are academics 
>as well. So you are at the right place! Maybe we could work with the 
>IGDA game curriculum committee to get something more official from 
>the SIG out there. Any ideas about that? Would you be interested in 
>heading up that project? If so, let me know and I'll give you more 
>information and e-introduce you to some folks in that committee. :)
>
>But I think that we can only get better at this and include more 
>universities. Right now I'm working with DIGRA, which is a good 
>organization aimed at academics and game studies, to start up a 
>parallel SIG (nothing will change about us but basically we'll be 
>working more with the DIGRA people to hopefully build another bridge 
>to academia). So hopefully in a few days I'll have the official 
>announcement about this additional membership group to the IGDA SIG.
>
>Michelle
>
>>I have been thinking about how to get "mainstream games" more
>>accessible, and maybe we need to approach colleges and other higher
>>education institutions  that teach game development to teach
>>Accessibility to the students.  If game developers are instructed on
>>how games can be made accessible, then maybe we can avoid some of the
>>problems that we have today.   There is a starting point using the
>>Guidelines for developing accessible games  at
>>http://gameaccess.medialt.no/guide.php.  Is anyone already teaching
>>Accessibility for Gaming in a college or University program? 
>>
>>-----------
>>Thank You,
>>
>>Tom Roome
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-----------
Thank You, 

Tom Roome