[games_access] games_access Digest, Vol 102, Issue 6

Mon Jul 9 07:46:09 EDT 2012

Hi Ian,

well sounds good, but in the past, comments were not accepted.

So there is no benefit doing something, that will not be accepted.

L

Best regards,

Sandra

Von: games_access-bounces at igda.org [mailto:games_access-bounces at igda.org] Im
Auftrag von Ian Hamilton
Gesendet: Montag, 9. Juli 2012 13:29
An: games_access at igda.org
Betreff: Re: [games_access] games_access Digest, Vol 102, Issue 6

Couple of things I can definitely answer!

The GFH document wasn't an IGDA thing, it was Enabled Play. It wasn't an
online effort, it was done by people sitting in the same room at the
conference, for presentation the next day, with no time for getting feedback
from outside. 

Ben is planning on sharing it around once it has been tidied up a bit more,
what was produced on the day was just really for the benefit of Constance to
read on her trip home. 

SIG was well represented there, we accounted for a third of the working
group - Tara, Eleanor and myself. 

Secondly speech - it is being thought about a fair bit, not just here but in
industry. Halo did something nice with their online multiplayer preferences,
allowing to say whether or not you only want to play with people who use
voice chat, which ties in very well with your esports stuff. 

Luckily, aside from that issue of people being deliberately kicked out of
online games if they can't talk, speech is pretty good... at the moment it's
almost always just used as a supplementary alternative to other input
methods. It would be fantastic if other things (*ahem* kinect) could take a
lead from that.

Sounds like you've got a few good ideas for things you would like to see
done. As Thomas says it's an interest group, we don't have the luxury of
full-time staff that organisations like AbleGamers or SpecialEffect do, so
all I can recommend from my own experience is that if there's something that
you think shoudl be done, just to go ahead and do it! 

You certainly don't need anyone's permission, and there's no shortage of
people here who would be more than happy to help out with advice etc on
things you want to take a lead on. 

> From: games_access-request at igda.org
> Subject: games_access Digest, Vol 102, Issue 6
> To: games_access at igda.org
> Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2012 07:14:20 -0400
> 
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> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
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> 
> Today's Topics:
> 
> 1. Re: What is this SIG? (Sandra Uhling)
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2012 13:14:14 +0200
> From: "Sandra Uhling" <sandra_uhling at web.de>
> Subject: Re: [games_access] What is this SIG?
> To: "'IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List'"
> <games_access at igda.org>
> Message-ID: <000301cd5dc3$fb85fac0$f291f040$@de>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> 
> Hi Ian,
> 
> I do agree J
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Some points I do not like:
> 
> ? Still ignoring one category of disability (speech)!!
> 
> o Barrie, Ian, Brannon and I accept it.
> 
> ? Still ignoring the rights of other gamers (very important!)
> 
> o We have to avoid a gap between the players
> 
> o Bring solutions before it will become a problem
> 
> ? Not including members in important descision e. g. Film Victoria
> 
> ? Not inlcuding members in the development of the second version of
> the top ten
> 
> ? Not supporting and care for the situation of the games industry
> 
> o We(!) have to enable them
> 
> o It is us(!) who have to do something, not them
> 
> ? No sensibility for the situation of the games industry 
> 
> o @Ian I loooove your comment, it is awesome!!
> 
> ? No position paper: Game Accessibility and Section 508, CRPD
> 
> o It can contain something like:
> 
> ? Games are not websites (so WCAG does not fit)
> 
> ? Game Accessibility is difficult
> 
> ? A law would be bad
> 
> ? Research ? is needed
> 
> ? Tax relief is necessarry (measures can also be positive J )
> 
> ? Unnecessary suits have to be avoided
> 
> ? ?
> 
> ? No basic philosophy about Game Accessibility (to avoid
> misunderstanding prejudices)
> 
> o What is Game Accessibility?
> 
> o What is special about it?
> 
> o Games will not become boring, because it is an option
> 
> o How to avoid the misuse of GA as cheat
> 
> o ?.
> 
> o The White Paper is nice, a very good start, but it is old.
> 
> ? ?
> 
> 
> 
> Some Questions:
> 
> When Ubisoft announced that they will subtitle, did we send them
information
> about it????
> 
> 
> 
> The ?Group? who wrote the paper at Games for Health, were there guys from
> us?
> 
> Why did we not get this paper to be able to give feedback?
> 
> 
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Sandra
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Von: games_access-bounces at igda.org [mailto:games_access-bounces at igda.org]
Im
> Auftrag von Ian Hamilton
> Gesendet: Sonntag, 8. Juli 2012 14:31
> An: games_access at igda.org
> Betreff: Re: [games_access] What is this SIG? (Thomas Westin)
> 
> 
> 
> Aaron: are you the same Aaron from one in a million? If so are you heading
> to London?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Thomas: Put far better than me! Two things in particular -
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> > ? Learn from accessibility design in other areas, like the Web
> Accessibility Initiative at W3C. 
> > #5: As far as I can recall, this point has not been very followed-up,
and
> it should be, just keeping in mind that games is rather different than
> hypertext.
> 
> 
> 
> >From my angle what there is to learn from them isn't accessibly itself,
it's
> looking back at how the accessibility agenda progressed in industries that
> are far further ahead than games. That's certainly happening, for example
> the healthy debate the other week about legislation in web & construction.
> The history of other industries provides a pretty good basis for a
roadmap.
> It's also interesting to look at more recent things too, like how mobile
> accessibility is progressing and what's driving that.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> > Creating standards: I believe that standardization is good in many ways,
> but it is also very hard; it takes a lot of time, resources and industry
> involvement. Then, the next thing is to get developers to use those
> standards. Many websites for instance still doesn't use the alt-tag for
> images, an extremely simple thing to do but time is limited, not just for
> game developers :) If you want to go the standardization route, you should
> first team up with Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, EA, Blizzard and similar big
> players. After 9 years it has not happened yet, but of course it is
> something to strive for. Anyone who feels like picking up this huge
> gauntlet, feel free to do so.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Picked up. Hopefully that's something useful that I can bring to the table
> as I have a background in standards & guidelines. I've had internal
> accessibility standards successfully written and implemented within a
> prolific publisher, they've been mandatory for every one of their internal
> games and third party commissions over the past two years. 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Having said that though, doing something internally where a mandate can be
> passed at a corporate level is a bit different to across an industry - you
> can't jump straight to standards. EA turning around and saying that all of
> their games must comply with a basic level of accessibility isn't helpful
> when there isn't any knowledge amongst developers. I've seen precisely
that
> happen before and fail, it needs to come bottom up as well as top down.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> So guidelines & best practices have to come first. There's already plenty
of
> knowledge and previous guidelines work in existence, so it's a case of
> pulling that all together, getting it up to date, and into a developer /
> exec friendly format. For reviewing/feedback I have some good contacts for
> input outside of the usual developers & GA experts, such as an ex-BSI
> standards consultant, and the BBC's head of accessibility & usability. 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And then yes, critically, getting people to use them. Can't move beyond
> loose guidelines until there are plenty of proven case studies of them in
> use. I have a couple of initial developers lined up, but if anyone on the
> list has links with a developer who might be interested in some guidance
> then please let me know!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ian
> 
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