Federal agencies (DoD see FAR Subpart 39.2) are Congressionally mandated to provide electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. Exemption is allowed if accommodation would cause undue burden, would lessen the overall experience for most users, or if no conforming options exist, and exceptions hold for some military procurements. Prior authors have shared guidance on implementing accessible web-delivered courseware, but actionable creation guidance for accessible learning games has not previously been discussed.
Many serious games provide basic in-game accommodations and with exemption offer alternate, non-game content to meet users' needs. Our community should challenge ourselves to provide serious game experiences to a wider learner audience, accommodating disabled users through the assistive technologies they utilize in their daily lives. While this sounds easily agreeable, in practice barriers to providing inclusive gameplay are prevalent. The most used development engines render games inaccessible to assistive technologies, budgets are often lower than developers request even without accounting for accessibility requirements, and the learning games community lacks accessibility design guidance.
The widely recognized Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, originally developed for traditional web content, can be adapted to address accessibility in interactive games. Applied in this way, WCAG offers generalized themes useful for developers to extend and interpret as guidance for complex, dynamic user experiences. By designing to WCAG, developers can ensure that their games will be accessible to a wide range of users and create a foundation to communicate the accessibility level of products using a generally understood lexicon.
This paper offers the serious games community a practical guide to accessibility. Topics include: an overview of regulations, requirements, and consumer expectations for accessibility, WCAG introduction with concepts anchored by learning game examples, a comparison of implementing in-game versus assistive technology accommodations with lessons learned, and design challenge highlights from efforts to provide engaging gameplay for all.
Keywords
DESIGN, GAME TECHNOLOGY, SERIOUS GAMES, USER PREFERENCES
Additional Keywords
Accessibility, Usability, Guidelines, Disability, Accomodaitons, Inclusive Design, User Experience, Assistive Technologies, WCAG