[games_access] Feedback needed on poster for GDC 2008

[AudioGames.net]

Hi,

*quote*
I'm curious if you or anyone has other opinions? Not many people are using 
captions in this way and no standards have been established.
*quote end*

Concerning alternatives to Closed Captions, I'm really interested in 
Animated Sound Balloons (a personal concept of mine that as far as I know 
has not really been done yet - see 
http://www.accessibility.nl/games/index.php?pagefile=soundalternative ). I 
agree with you (Reid) that "(whether or not) one sound is loud or soft 
doesn't usually communicate important gameplay information". However, even 
though not related to important gameplay information, I guess I would like 
to know whether or not a sound is loud or soft, or how it behaves. For 
example, if a faucet dripping water is going "drip-drip-drip-drip-drip" or 
"drip-pause-drip-pause-drip". This is stuff that is designed by people in my 
field which I think is important to also try and make accessible for those 
players who want it.

But I agree with you that there should always (!) be the option "to fall 
back to plain non-stylized captions", if only for those who want to adapt 
audio to text, for instance for deaf-blind gamers who use a braille display. 
But I also think we should consider more creative alternatives to simply 
text.

Greets,

Richard



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Reid Kimball" <reid at rbkdesign.com>
To: "IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List" <games_access at igda.org>
Sent: Friday, January 04, 2008 7:17 PM
Subject: Re: [games_access] Feedback needed on poster for GDC 2008


> Of the games that use closed captioning they usually don't communicate
> gameplay or other info such as distance and loudness. That is more a
> style choice in my opinion, whether to change the alpha of the caption
> based on how loud the sound is. My personal opinion is to err on the
> side of readability and not use alpha to communicate loudness or
> distance, etc. The distance can be represented in the visual sound
> radar if the game/player wants to use that feature. Usually, how loud
> a sound is doesn't matter, because one sound is loud or soft doesn't
> usually communicate important gameplay information.
>
> I can see developers wanting to get creative with the captions, making
> them shake and look distorted to represent an earthquake, that's fine,
> but I think players should have the option to turn these text
> animations off and fall back to plain non-stylized captions. They may
> have poor vision or a low quality TV that makes them prefer the plain
> text.
>
> I'm curious if you or anyone has other opinions? Not many people are
> using captions in this way and no standards have been established.
>
> -Reid
>
> On Jan 4, 2008 9:53 AM, Matthias Troup <foreversublime at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>  Reid,
>>
>>  A little off topic - Does [dcc] have any features relating to gameplay 
>> and
>> difficulty?  Hard-to-hear sounds could be missed by anyone regardless of
>> their hearing ability.  If the text were harder to see that would reflect
>> the chance you might miss what the text identified.  For instance, if the
>> text were displayed with an alpha channel correlating to how far 
>> away/loud
>> the sound was and/or if the text were visible on-screen for a time that
>> correlated to the distance/volume of the sound.
>>
>>  -Matt
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> > Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 22:10:25 -0800
>> > From: reid at rbkdesign.com
>> > To: games_access at igda.org
>>
>> > Subject: [games_access] Feedback needed on poster for GDC 2008
>> >
>>
>> > Hi everyone,
>> >
>> > I'm working on a poster for my Dynamic Closed Captioning poster
>> > session at GDC this coming Feb 2008. I'd like feedback on the poster
>> > regarding the actual content I have on it. I wanted to keep the
>> > content minimal, I want people talking with me rather than reading
>> > posters. I also want the poster to prompt them to ask questions, so
>> > not everything is explained clearly on purpose.
>> >
>> > NOTE: I know that one screenshot is labeled as Half-Life 2 but instead
>> > shows Doom3[CC], this is temp and I'll change it to HL2 later.
>> >
>> > Take a look at the word 2007 version or the pdf version linked below:
>> >
>> > http://gamescc.rbkdesign.com/GDC2008_poster02.docx
>> > http://gamescc.rbkdesign.com/GDC2008_poster02.pdf
>> >
>> > Thanks everyone,
>> >
>> > -Reid
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > games_access mailing list
>> > games_access at igda.org
>> > http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/games_access
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>> Share life as it happens with the new Windows Live. Start sharing!
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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