[games_access] Top 10 list
d. michelle hinn
hinn at uiuc.edu
Wed Oct 3 13:47:11 EDT 2007
Yeah, cognitive disabilities have not gotten a lot of attention so
far. I think it's because it often crosses over into the ed
psych/teaching domain. And things get REALLY tricky there. I'm not
saying we shouldn't brainstorm this and think more deeply about what
the range of issues are -- we just have a steep learning curve ahead.
For example, here's my story: I was diagnosed with dyslexia really
late. I mean during my last semester in college (age 21). There was
signs that we missed early -- like I kept scoring low on certain
standardized tests that temporarily put me into the (I'm not kidding)
"brown" reading group (wow...what kind of freudian weirdness was
going on when they pick that color to represent "low score"). The
thing is -- and a lot of things have changed with the education
system in the US (I can't speak to the changes in other countries but
I just don't know the history) and so there are individualized
solutions (although there are still problems) -- when I was in those
early school years, you would get shifted to the "brown" group and
then you were immediately sent to a "learning disabilities classroom"
where the range in there could have been anywhere from low IQ/mental
retardation to (yes) behavioral disorders. And this is where ALL
classes were taught even if you didn't have a problem in any area but
reading (so I would have been fated to "remedial" (I always hated
that word) math even though my scores in that area were really high.
So...my parents yelled and screamed, took me to a testing center and,
whoa, I have a high IQ. So the school apologized because obviously I
wasn't "challenged" by the tests so I was bored and that's why I
scored low. Next thing you know? I'm in the "gifted" (another loaded
word) classes all across the board. Meanwhile...I still had dyslexia
and reading problems but it was treated as "laziness" and
"air-headed" (I keep putting certain terms in quotes you my have
noticed) and, well, I'll just say that it's not a lot of fun to be
told that constantly. So I worked my butt off to avoid constantly
being embarrassed and somehow worked at things enough that I figured
out alternative ways of going about things (not "cheats" but
definitely not doing things the "right" way). Basically it was like a
big game -- how can I blend into "normal" even though I didn't know
why something was out of whack. So when my cognitive psych teacher in
undergrad got suspicious about why I could talk about the material in
class (and argue about it), why was I failing her multiple choice
tests. Long story short, she asked me to talk about some of the test
material with her (without the whole multiple choice thing) when I
went to her office, I answered them correctly and she sent me to her
colleague's office to take a reading test. I scored two standard
deviations below where my reading scores should have been compared to
the language (reading, comprehension, etc) subsets of two different
IQ tests...bingo. Dyslexia. So now I had a reason for all that
struggle and mislabelling but...I made it all the way through the
school system without instruction on how to make things make more
sense without hitting my head against the wall every day (not a
recommended solution). So by then it was a big "oh...whoops. I guess
it wasn't laziness...sorry about that" but that was that. I'd
retrained my brain (Nintendo Brain Age might have been cool to have
back then) and had gone on with things.
That's not to say that knowing that solved everything -- I STILL work
my butt off and that's the way it is. I've done a lot of reading
about dyslexia and theories on how deficits in dealing with written
language are counterbalanced by "gifts" in visual and creative
reasoning. My guess is that if that's true that it was that that
helped me figure things out in another way than how I was "supposed"
to be reading things.
Ok, I'll stop now before this becomes a complete autobiography.
Anyway, just taking dyslexia as an example...the whole falling 2
standard deviations below comparative IQ test things can mean that a
person with dyslexia might fall in the "average reader" category or
"below average" depending on the IQ differences. So that means
different things in how we deal with the reading issue. I fell into
the "average/normal" reading zone but I was frustrated because it was
so far off where my brain thought I should be. For others thing might
mean that they have a VERY VERY hard time even learning to read AT
ALL. And even with all the theories on "well maybe we need a language
of pictures versus words," there still hasn't been any big movements
to discourage reading...that being said, there are an awful lot of
people who get treated as "ok, dyslexia...so you aren't going to be
able to read very well so here are your limited vocational
options..." rrrrrrr...
So in games, I have a lot of trouble in MMOs because even though we
are now way beyond the old text-only MUDs, etc. there's still a lot
of text flying around in a million different windows/boxes/threads on
screen with constant interruptions to throw me off even more. Yeah,
when it comes to something work related, I multitask and deal with
this but it's really tiring sometimes. So I shut off messenger, my
email, etc when I need to get down to concentrating on decoding the
task at hand. So why would I even want to deal with that FOR FUN?
Truth is...I don't! Is there a solution for this for game design?
Sure, there are things to make things better. But here's the catch 22
(and this applies for so many people with all kinds of disabilities)
-- I'm gonna need convincing that it's worth my time because there
are a lot of other kinds of games that aren't like this.
Ah...so I just said it -- we need to not only convince the industry
that games are important and that they need to be accessible because
we know that it's an important leisure outlet...but we also need to
win over (or win back) potential gamers with disabilities who have
just said "screw it" because they've had a lot of frustrating
experiences. For me, for my case? I've got a lot of games that I play
that I like and don't annoy me and feel like a second (5th?) job.
Other disability types? Options get really, really limited and the
situation is can put in solutions that help a person play any ONE
game...just one game, any game...because they cannot access games
period. Would I, personally, like to play (and enjoy) MMOs style
games? Sure! Because I like the idea of them. But it's gonna take
some selling back to me to be ok with paying the monthly fees,
purchasing the game, etc because I have already spent a fair chunk of
change trying them out because friends are on them only to end up
uninstalling them and cancelling the subscriptions pretty quickly
because I'd rather play Halo3 or SingStar (yes...text, text,
text...but it's just one stream versus multidirectional
simultaneously). But, secretly, I would like to get together with my
friends online and go on whatever goofy, fun online treks that they
are going on.
Wow...I said I was going to stop then wrote 3 long paragraphs more.
It's ok...you can laugh if you have read this far. :D
I was going to say "just my 2 cents..." but I think that was more
like "just my $29.99" :) The summary point being...yes, we need to
think about this more AND understand the complexity and uniqueness of
these types of disabilities just as we struggle to do so for every
disability type.
For someone who has a weird relationship with written text, I do type
an awful LOT of really long messages. Ironic, huh? And complicated. ;)
Michelle
>Hey Richard,
>
>Cool I'll check it out. For our flyer we might actually organize them
>around the four disability categories. Talking about that, I kind of
>feel cognitive disabilities are a little bit of an underrepresented
>category in our work its something we should brainstorm over at some
>time.
>
>cheers Eelke
>
>
>On 10/1/07, AudioGames.net <richard at audiogames.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>> got an old version here:
>>
>>
>> http://kmt.hku.nl/~richard/gatheory/gatheoryshort012_2OLD.zip
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: AudioGames.net
>> To: IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List
>>
>> Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2007 1:05 AM
>> Subject: Re: [games_access] Top 10 list
>>
>>
>> Hi again,
>>
>> Based on much of Dimitris' theory/practice, as well as the works of Eelke,
>> the current top 10 list and the other guidelines of other GA initiatives,
>> I've been able to devise 10 key points for developing accessible games, each
>> one including (and bringing order to) the guidelines, design patterns and
>> recommendations that are floating around in this field. I don't have the
>> latest version with me now on this computer, but I'll upload it (mind it is
>> still a bit of a work in progress) tomorrow.
>>
>> Greets,
>>
>> Richard
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: Graham McAllister
>> To: IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List
>> Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2007 12:51 AM
> > Subject: Re: [games_access] Top 10 list
>>
>>
>> Hi All,
>>
>>
>> If you haven't already read it, it might be worth reading Dimitris
>> Grammenos's paper entitled Unified Design of Universally Accessible Games
>> which was published at HCII 2007. I've only joined the GASIG today, so
>> please don't shoot me down if you've looked at this already.
>>
>>
>> Graham.
>>
>>
>>
>> Graham McAllister, Ph.D.
>> University of Sussex
>> Interact Lab
>> +44 1273 877267
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 1 Oct 2007, at 23:38, Eelke Folmer wrote:
>>
>>
>> Hi Barrie,
>>
>>
>> That list looks pretty good to me. Only bullet 3 is kind of something
>> of the past. I see more and more manuel less games since its much
>> easier and accessible to provide in- game feedback e.g a tutorial
>> agent etc. I'm not against this format but would it be an idea to
>> relate these requirements to actual accessibility problems? E.g. why
>> is it important to have re-mappable controls? a picture of a quad
>> controller or a one button might help visualize the actual
>> accessibility problem rather than have a game designer wonder about
>> why that requirement needs to be implemented. We could actually go for
>> 2 lists of 5 with a little bit more elaboration on the actual
>> problems. We could center it around our ghosts but maybe some others
>> have some good ideas?
>>
>>
>> cheers Eelke
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 10/1/07, Barrie Ellis <barrie.ellis at oneswitch.org.uk> wrote:
>>
>> Top 10 list on the GASIG wiki is here:
>> http://www.igda.org/wiki/Top_Ten
>>
>>
>> Most up to date version here:
>> http://tim.thechases.com/top10_2.pdf
>> 1.. allow all controls (mouse, keyboard, gamepad) to be remapped
>> 2.. add closed-captioning for all dialog and important sound-effects
>> 3.. provide documentation in an accessible format (HTML or plain-text)
>> 4.. provide assist modes (auto-targeting, training options, etc)
>> 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
>> 9.. allow for a varied range of control over play-speed
>> 10.. announce accessibility features on packaging
>> Still looks good to me - with personal one-switch wish lists being 1, 4, 5,
>> 9 and 10. I think there should be inclusion of an alternative reduced
>> controls option, such as with Electronic Arts Wii Madden game:
>> http://switchgaming.blogspot.com/2007/07/well-done-electronic-arts.html
>> -
>> this does tie up with section 4, but I think we need to highlight this need.
>>
>>
>> Barrie
>> www.OneSwitch.org.uk
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "d. michelle hinn" <hinn at uiuc.edu>
>> To: "IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List" <games_access at igda.org>
>> Sent: Monday, October 01, 2007 8:58 AM
>> Subject: Re: [games_access] same proposal in multiple tracks
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Sweet !
>>
>>
>> Cool so can I help organize /coordinate the accessibility task force
>> and use my physical appearance to intimidate game developers and get
>> their asses at our talks?
>>
>>
>> Hehe. Ok, but you have to tell me what an accessibility task force is
>> first! And remember I'm the "accessibility evangelist" (as Richard dubbed
>> me) so I'm always for multiple approaches because it spreads the word!
>> Yes, I think if you stood in front of the doors to other talks and pointed
>> at our room, looking super fierce that would help. ;)
>>
>>
>>
>> What we need:
>> - cool shirts
>>
>>
>> So as Barrie found out...Cafe Press yanked our design. I'm going to shop
>> around town here at some t-shirt shops to find out cost per shirt and
>> where the quantity price breaks are. Can you do the same in Reno? Wherever
>> there's a university, there's t-shirt shops. Then we can compare prices
>> for bulk shirt orders. And we need some place who will print the ghosts.
>> :D
>>
>>
>> Should we go with the file Barrie sent? That would make sense to me. It
>> might need to be tweaked in photoshop if we are going to print it on
>> black, which always adds a little extra work. Richard, can you help us
> > tweak Barrie's file so that it can be printed (and look good) on black? We
>> definitely needs some shirts of some sort for E for All but I don't know
>> where we can get them quickly enough if Vista Print can't do it.
>>
>>
>>
>> - if only we had booth babes/hunks to help us.
>>
>>
>> hmmmmm....this probably isn't gonna happen unless we figure out where we
>> can find a set of really good looking people who all want to stand at the
>> booth for free. :D So I guess we'll all just have to do our best to be as
>> baby (babish? babelike?) and as hunky as we can. Hmm...I just remembered
>> that my class is making an accessible game with sexual themes...well maybe
>> the graphics guys in the class can make us some avatars we can make
>> lifesize cutouts of? Lol.
>>
>>
>>
>> - brief concise flyers with 10 little nuggets of knowledge that can be
>> pinned to a game developers cubicle and provide immediate inspiration
>> on how to improve his or her game. Draft topics list (lets vote on
>> what should be on here & this is in no way a promotion of my work I
>> suggest we keep the number of "adds' to a minimum maybe just a link to
>> the igda / accessibility sig so they can find the rest from there):
>> 1. Closed captions
>> 2. Customizable controls
>> 3. Slow
>> 4. Assists
>> 5. x
>> 6. x
>> 7. x
>> 8. x
>> 9.x
>> 10. x
>>
>>
>> Well we have our current top ten list (it's somewhere on the wiki too but
>> I'm still madly typing) -- that has a lot on it. We can update it
>> though -- so far I think the ones you suggest are on the list. So maybe
>> take a look at the list we've used for the past two years and see what can
>> be consolidated, added, subtracted, better explained. And then we can
>> start there with the addition of other ideas and then we can discuss/vote
>> on what makes the cut for the flier. As you said, the rest can be on the
>> sig site.
>>
>>
>> I think we're getting there for GDC -- I'm already feeling pumped now that
>> we have you looking at the "what to do when you aren't speaking" plan of
>> attack and I'll keep charge of the proposals and CMP stuff.
>>
>>
>> So we do both and hopefully reap the benefits of having a real plan in
>> place for negotiating the talks AND the expo. There's no reason to drop
>> proposals when so many get axed anyway and they are important too -- but
>> networking is just as important and it will no doubt help get more people
>> into our talks and visiting our booth. And it's also something that
>> happens after a talk, during Q&A and when people come up to you to swap
>> cards with you. So with strong proposals like we have and a strong
>> marketing plan, it can only serve to help us!
>>
>>
>> Kick. Ass. :D
>>
>>
>> Michelle
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>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Eelke Folmer Assistant Professor
>> Department of CS&E/171
>> University of Nevada Reno, Nevada 89557
>> Game interaction design www.helpyouplay.com
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>Department of CS&E/171
>University of Nevada Reno, Nevada 89557
>Game interaction design www.helpyouplay.com
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