G4H: game accessibility research @ University of Nevada, Reno
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The document discusses a presentation on game accessibility by Eelke Folmer at the Games 4 Health Conference, highlighting the barriers faced by individuals with disabilities in gaming. It outlines research findings on alternative gameplay strategies, including haptic feedback and command-based interfaces for virtual worlds. Key contributions include making music-based games accessible to visually impaired players and identifying the unique challenges posed by virtual environments compared to traditional video games.
G4H: game accessibility research @ University of Nevada, Reno
- 1. Games 4 Health Conference, Boston Game Accessibility Workshop June 10th 2009 Game Accessibility Research @ Eelke Folmer
- 2. Overview 1.Introduction 2.Motivation for Research 3.Research Projects: 1 TextSL 4.Lessons Learned 5.Q&A
- 3. Eelke Folmer Assistant Professor (2006) Player-Game-Interaction Lab 2 MS. / 3 Ph.D / 1 PostDoc Research Interests: Dead Space Human Computer Interaction Software Engineering Games / Virtual Worlds http://www.eelke.com Wii-Fit “You are what you play”: BioShock
- 4. Motivations
- 5. Games are pervasive Education Advertising Politics Military Simulations Health ...
- 6. Diverse audience More & more people are interested in playing games Varying amounts of experience & abilities Individuals with disabilities often face significant barriers to or are excluded from playing games What are these barriers? Illustrate with a Game Interaction Model
- 7. How do we play games? game output 3 different modalities input player
- 8. Detailed Steps 1.Game provides feedback {enemies/ gunfire/ sound} 2.Player decides what in-game response to provide: 1.(a) Do nothing. 2.(b) Move or reorient his/her character. 3.(c) Fire his/her gun. 4.(d) Change the weapon. 5.(e) Change the camera viewpoint. 6.(f) Reload, pause, or save the game. 3.The player must physically issue the chosen action(s) through a physical device. 4.The internal state of the game may change and new feedback may be provided
- 9. Synthesis 1. feedback 1. feedback 1. feedback 2. up/down 2. left/right/gas 2. left/right/shoot 3. button 3. wheel 3. button / mouse
- 11. Disability
- 12. Disability
- 13. Disability
- 14. Disability
- 15. Disability
- 16. Game Accessibility Stats ★Disability may affect ability to play to different extents ★Based on Census 2006 data & game interaction model we found that in the US: ★6.2 Million disabled are unable to play games at all ★25.9 Million disabled suffer from reduced game experience ★Elderly overly represented in our estimates. ★Nevertheless this will be a big problem in the future
- 17. Our research ★Understand exactly what barriers individuals with disabilities face. ★Research alternative ways to play: ★Feedback from alternative modalities ★Reduced amounts of input. ★while retaining game experience ★Focus on game genres that are NOT accessible ★More complex interaction models ★Provide examples & guidelines to the game industry.
- 19. Guitar Hero > 21M copies sold Dominate sales charts Not playable by
- 20. Viable strategies ? VI accessible games Guitar Hero • Speech • Interference with music • Earcons • Sonification • Too many stimuli • Audio Cues
- 21. Haptic output 5 Different “notes” ! Varying note lengths Lookahead <3 notes simultaneously ! ? ? Glove Pager engines (# ? ) “Haptic Cues”? Position?
- 22. Tradeoffs ! remove lookahead ! ★“whack a mole” gameplay Remove ★retain “guitar playing” feeling 1 button ★Easy to learn ★Fun!
- 23. Play testing
- 24. User Study Participants 8 sighted + 4 visually impaired age 20 - 41 (SD=4.5) Groups 1 sighted Blind Hero first time players 2 blind Blind Hero first time players 3 sighted Blind Hero experts on Guitar Hero 4 sighted Guitar Hero first time players Play 2 songs repeatedly (to measure increase) for 4 times
- 25. Results guitar Hero - novice expert VI novice Haptic is a viable strategy for Music based games Performance lower but could increase over time Most important: participants enjoyed the game
- 26. one switch games
- 27. Problem switch controller mouth controller eye tracker one handed joystick rely upon adapted controllers Constrained (type/ amount) Suitable for arcade/puzzle games Not suitable for popular game genres (FPS, RTS, etc)
- 28. Research objective less ? Find smallest amount of input. Preserve gameplay. Find the “core” of the game. What strategies can be used? more
- 29. Experiences less ✔ ✔ ✔ Support all types of input Find minimum (may not be binary 1 switch) Identified the following mechanisms: automation reduction more scanning How do these change the gameplay?
- 30. Gordon’s Trigger Finger Be able to respond fast Scanning/automating/removing Idea: player on top of a bot? Evaluate alternatives Scanning too slow moving user automated Multiplayer only aiming user automated fire user user Railshooter switch weapons user random Balanced/ Fair open doors user automated FUN jump/crawl user removed
- 31. Video
- 32. One Switch Interfaces Music Puzzle Games virtual world Sports Games first person shooter
- 33. TextSL
- 34. Virtual Worlds Second Life / There / Active / Home Higher degree of interaction. Visually attractive Entirely driven by user generated content Virtual Economy Social Interaction most important Estimated: in 4 years 80% of internet users will have a VW account
- 35. Accessibility Problem ? ? ? Unlike Web, VW lack textual representation Not Accessible with screen reader / tactile display VW increasingly used as virtual classrooms / distance learning (Section 508) Communities for Disabled in SL (Virtual ability) Research how VW can be made accessible develop prototype interface
- 36. Analyze differences virtual worlds video games VW lack Combat/Storyline/Score No need for quick responses as you cannot die Everything is user generated (large amount of content you cannot change) Viewer offers large number of functions including creating objects. Many operations on objects. Objects define their own functionality through scripts. VW viewers is more like a browser.
- 37. Output Strategies VI games (TerraFormers, AudioQuake, Shades of Doom) with similar interaction mechanisms as VW. All use audio Levels have minimum number of objects Most strategies focus on being able to locate “enemies” Earcons & Audio Cues (too many objects in VW & you cannot augment objects ) Sound Radar (not applicable) Speech (applicable, but requires augmentation)
- 38. Controls Controls the same as the original games (arrow keys) Player has to do the pathfinding which is useful for mental mapping (dungeons) Generic “use” command to interact with objects Design of levels accommodates limited interaction & manual pathfinding CS difficult to implement in Virtual worlds as Large amount of objects & avatars Large number of functions to support. Mental mapping impossible in VW Manual Pathfinding is very hard
- 39. Different approach Command based interface (TextSL): Inspired by multi user dungeon games (MUD) “chat interface” to support social interaction Iteratively extract texts that can be read with a screen reader Command based interaction supports interaction with large amounts of objects & Avatars (“give my flower to jane”, “sit on chair”)
- 40. TextSL features Commands in 3 categories: Exploration (move / fly / teleport / follow / describe /where) Communication (say / whisper / mute,.....) Interaction (sit, touch.....) Notable features: Natural language (go / travel / walk all map to “move” ) increasing learnability. Interpreter allows for prepositions and adjectives “give my chair to...” Collision free navigation. e.g. “Move forward 100” Summarizer aims to minimize the amount of feedback provided to avoid overwhelming the user with feedback.
- 41. User Studies Compare TextSL with SL 8 Sighted & 8 Screen reader users Tasks in 3 categories + tutorial Measure success rate & performance times TextSL has same succesrate as SL viewer for performing tasks (accessibility) Exploration & Interaction significantly slower (usability) Communication the same. Command based interface is a feasible approach
- 42. Lessons Learned Research contributions: Haptic feedback is a viable strategy for making music based games accessible to VI. Popular game genres can be made switch accessible by automating, reducing or making it switch accessible but it involves significant tradeoffs with regard to the gameplay. For a number of popular game genres we now understand these tradeoffs. Virtual worlds are different from Video games and require a different strategy to make them accessible to VI. A command-based interface is a feasible approach. lack of meta data for objects in SL
- 43. Questions? A description of all research projects & media (video/ downloads) can be found on http://www.eelke.com