[games_access] games_access Digest, Vol 99, Issue 10

[Ian Hamilton]

I wouldn't go as far as to say that checklists are not useful.
There are three sides to achieving accessibility, each with their own advantages and disadvantages:
1. Checklists/standards/guidelines. 
These are extremely useful as a general quick reference, allowing people without any accessibility experience to achieve a good general level of accessibility, and also giving something concrete to evaluate against. However they are one set of single rules that apply to everything, and don't take into account the individual differences between games. Also because they are so general, they are easy to misinterpret or misunderstand, especially if you don't have any accessibility experience.
2. Expert review. 
Consultancy / audits by an experienced accessibility specialist allows precisely tailored recommendations that can be precisely tailored to the individual game. They are cheap and allow issues to be addressed at a very early stage of development before play-testing is possible, avoiding retrofitting costs, however recommendations are unavoidably  biased by that person's personal experience, and will be hampered by any holes in their knowledge of either accessibility, the game, or the intended audience.
3. Play-testing with disabled players. 
This uncovers large numbers of subtle issues that would not be found by other methods, however due to the tiny sample sizes involved the results are not statistically significant and may just be coincidence, specific to those players rather than being representative of the issues that all disabled players face. Results are often misinterpreted as proof, or people thinking for example that if no issues appear after testing with four players then there are no issues at all.
So while all three of them are useful in themselves, the best approach is to use all three, as each one compensates for the disadvantages of the others.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/gel/accessibility/accessibility-principles/test http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2011/10/something_special_makaton_out_about_universal.html
http://coi.gov.uk/guidance.php?page=134 http://www.access8878.co.uk/assuring-accessiblity/methods.aspx 
Hope that helps
Ian


> From: games_access-request at igda.org
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> Today's Topics:
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>    1. Question from a student (Sandra Uhling)
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> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2012 22:22:21 +0200 (CEST)
> From: "Sandra Uhling" <sandra_uhling at web.de>
> Subject: [games_access] Question from a student
> To: "IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List"
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>Hello,>>here are some questions about guidelines for GA.>>* Links for the topic "Why are checklist not useful">* When was the release date of our new top ten list? verison two.>* When was the release of the "beginer guide" of Brannon?>>Please send the information to: Kristin Lenk "kristin.lenk at tu-ilmenau.de">>Best regards,>>Sandra 		 	   		  
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