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Tips for building your own accessibility program
14.11.2023 - 14:54 / gamedeveloper.com
A common refrain from accessibility advocates in game development is that the best way to support players with disabilities is to start designing features around their needs from day one. Settings for color-blind players, text-to-audio descriptions, and other tools are easier to implement if they're accounted for early rather than shoved in at the end of production.
But every developer knows every game comes with its own unique accessibility quirks. For instance, first-person shooters may need to account for PTSD triggers for those who've been around gun violence, whereas cozy farming simulators don't. Cozy farming simulators may benefit from features that reduce cognitive load for neurodivergent players, but those same cognitive load reductions may not work for a 3D platformer, and so on and so forth.
However, developers and publishers have options. Many high-profile studios are already rolling out extensive accessibility features, and publishers like Whitethorn Games are establishing accessibility pipelines to support the smaller teams working across many genres. For insight on how those pipelines are structured, we checked in with chief accessibility officer Britt Dye for a look at her day-to-day workflow and a discussion about how accessibility can be approached at studios of all shapes and sizes.
Dye has a rather fun background as a chief accessibility officer. She began her professional career in the world of library science and eventually transitioned into the world of user research. She began to think about how product usability and accessibility go hand-in-hand, finding frequent intersectionality between the two worlds.
"The skill set is pretty well aligned," she said when pressed about how library science can lead to a career in accessibility. "A lot of [library science] is about "findability of information," and in video games, usability is kind of similar, but you're leading players to information in a game." She recalled doing projects on the information-seeking habits of players while studying the more book-bound field.
At Whitethorn Games, Dye has regular meetings with developers signed to the label on a monthly or bi-monthly basis, depending on where the team is in production. In these meetings, she presents her findings on any barriers to accessibility that appear in their games. But she's not just there to lecture them about what they've missed. "I want to be a resource for them," she explained. "If there's something that they want to know about or learn about, I can help them by either giving them the information or finding out about it myself."
Her department, she explained, is structured as a resource for developers, not about dictating what's needed in games. Dye adjusts her feedback
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