[games_access] To Robert and everyone - Conference Thread

Fri Sep 15 04:36:33 EDT 2006

Hi Robert and everyone,

I have added the Games For Health Conference on the Conference page over at 
Game-Accessibility.com since it was not yet up there. I would like to ask 
everyone that if you are going to a conference and you will be doing 
something there with game accessibility (either in name of the IGDA GA-SIG 
or your own foundation/company or person) to take 1 minute to write down the 
name, date and location of the conference, as well as a one line description 
of the activity going on there. Although this forum is entitled "IGDA Game 
Accessibility SIG Projects", I guess it's alright to post any game 
accessibility activity anywhere here...

This way we all can keep track ourselves of who is doing what at what 
conference, since at this moment a lot of us are going "what conference is 
he/she talking about??". Everybody can participate since everybody is 
allowed to post on the forum. Another benifit is that other people who are 
not on this mailing list but who visit G-A.com also know that there is 
GA-Activity somewhere (which may draw some more crowd to your presentation). 
This makes these conferences and our activity also findable through Google. 
Next to this all, you could use the conference thread to discuss what 
materials you still need, discuss your presentation afterwards with possible 
visitors, etc. etc.

Here's an example of what I mean: 
http://www.game-accessibility.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=135

Greets,

Richard

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robert Florio" <arthit73 at cablespeed.com>
To: "'IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List'" <games_access at igda.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 12, 2006 5:59 PM
Subject: RE: [games_access] Game Accessibility article: "Games That Reach 
Out"-News Gazette

Great article thanks for sharing this with us.  It's a nice revitalizing
message to give us to specifically at the time I'm going to write my speech
for games for health conference September 28 something that inspiration to
focus.  Thanks.

Robert
AI online SGA President
arthit73 at cablespeed.com
www.RobertFlorio.com

-----Original Message-----
From: games_access-bounces at igda.org [mailto:games_access-bounces at igda.org]
On Behalf Of Barrie Ellis
Sent: Tuesday, September 12, 2006 9:14 AM
To: IGDA GA mailing list
Subject: [games_access] Game Accessibility article: "Games That Reach Out"
-News Gazette

There's a great article on Michelle's blog here:

http://vrgrrl.blogspot.com/2006/09/btw-i-never-did-put-up-that-article.html

I've pasted it below too - hope you don't mind, Michelle, but I thought it
was too good a read not to.

Games That Reach Out

video games are a part of modern life for a lot of adults as well as kids,
michelle hinn says. people talk about the latest games like they talk about
the latest episode of the "sopranos" or the latest best-selling book. some
online multiplayer games are, in fact, little societies in and of
themselves.

hinn, a university of illinois doctoral student, is doing her dissertation
on social interactions and learning among college students in such games,
which she became interested in during a stint working for microsoft. here's
no law saying that games have to be accessible," hinn said.

while a few game developers have begun to include accessibility features --

"half life 2" sported closed-captioning and the adventure game
"terraformers" was designed to be played solely by sound as well as
visuals -- hinn is working to make the practice widespread.

she founded the international game developers association game accessibility

special interest group, has chaired it the last two years and is running for

a seat on the association's board [note: well...that didn't end up working
out but, hey, it was my first effort in game politics]. at the 2006 game
developer's conference in san jose, calif., last month, she was one of three

people who received an MVP award from the association. she works
internationally with other people promoting and developing accessible games
and is co-writing a book on accessible game development for charles river
media, a computer books publisher.

she's also started a software company, donationcoder, with friend jesse
reichler, a doctoral student in computer science at the UI, and is starting
a consulting business centered on accessible game development.

"i'm just trying to create my own job basically," hinn said jokingly.

she does all this in between, among other things, teaching classes at the UI

and serving as a counselor and instructor for the women in math, science and

engineering section of the florida avenue residence halls, a classroom and
residential program for women majoring in scientific and technical fields.

hinn is the rare person older than 30 that college students think of as
"cool," said piper hodson, who directs the women in math, science and
engineering program.

hodson thinks that's due in part to "street cred" from having worked for a
big-name tech company like microsoft and also a result of hinn's research,
which gives her a feel for youth culture.

"energy" is a word that seems to come up when people talk about hinn,
including UI professor bertram "chip" bruce, her dissertation adviser. bruce

said he's excited about the insights that could come from hinn's research
using games as a window into understanding how young people collaborate,
learn from each other, interact and share information. "i think michelle is
doing terrific work," he said.

jason della rocca, executive director of the international game developers
association, wouldn't disagree. "she's full of energy and excitement and
really has a drive to advocate for building accessibility into video games,´

he wrote in an e-mail. "she is an exemplary leader and has done so much to
organize and coordinate the efforts of the IGDA's game accessibility SIG --

one of our most active groups."

besides closed-captioning and audio games for the blind, hinn said games can

be made more accessible in a variety of ways. for example, designing them so

that the controls can be remapped by the user to allow game play to be
conducted easier with a mouth stick or the feet. likewise, font sizes and
colors could be adjustable for people with low vision.

members of the game accessibility group hinn chairs created a game
modification program, or mod, for doom III that allows not only
closed-captioning for dialogue, but also for ambient sounds that tell a
gamer an enemy is close.

game consoles also could be made to more easily accommodate alternative
controller hardware, hinn said, like a finger pad to allow someone in a
wheelchair to play the popular footwork game "dance dance revolution" with
friends.

"each group is going to have their own different need," hinn said. she noted

that accessibility can have advantages for game companies beyond the new
customers with disabilities it may yield for them. for instance, "switch,"
or one-button, games easily usable by the disabled also work well on
cellphones, a growing and potentially lucrative game market.

hinn, who should finish her doctorate in august (note: well...there's been a

bit of a delay with that...), earned bachelor's degrees in music performance

and psychology and a master's in instructional systems design at virginia
tech before coming to the UI's college of education for a national science
foundation fellowship focused on educational technology.

she got interested in web-based classes and simulation games for educational

purposes and has worked on projects related to those topics at the UI, the
national center for supercomputing applications and elsewhere.

her own experience overcoming dyslexia and experiences with disabled friends

and students working in programming and on computers got her interested in
accessibility, first in educational software and online resources.

hinn, who described herself as being into computers and social justice, was
interested in games already, and accessibility in games gradually became a
big interest.

"we always had game consoles in the house (growing up)," she said.

writer: greg kline

_______________________________________________
games_access mailing list
games_access at igda.org
http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/games_access

_______________________________________________
games_access mailing list
games_access at igda.org
http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/games_access 