Mobile audio games accessibility evaluation for users who are blind

Abstract

Digital games have become increasingly popular for both entertainment and education purposes. However, making these games universal and accessible poses a challenge for interface designers and game developers, since they are usually unfamiliar with the peculiarities of gamers who are blind. More effort is necessary for contributing to a universal game design and, ultimately, helping to promote the inclusion of people with disabilities to take full advantages of digital games. In this research, we present a study concerning existent guidelines and recommendations for accessibility in digital games. As a result, we propose ten recommendations for the design of mobile audio games, targeting gamers who are blind. We also present an evaluation instrument assembled from the recommendations we propose.We used this instrument to assess ten audio games labeled as inclusive. Results indicate that only three from a total of ten games were considered “good”, which means they met the fundamental aspects of the guidelines.