Audio accessibility fundamentals
You've learned about the portrayal of important game information through visual means and how players can become blocked from game progress if this visual information isn't accessible.
In this unit, learn about the relationship between audio and gaming, and the unintentional barriers inaccessible audio elements can introduce to players with disabilities.
Audio and gaming
Similar to visual elements, gaming experiences also use audio-based elements to portray information needed to navigate the experience. When this audio-based information isn't represented in an accessible way, players with hearing-related disabilities might be excluded from using this information.
In the following video, you can learn more about the relationship between audio and game experiences. You also learn how to identify common audio-based elements that can pose unintentional barriers for players.
Hearing and disability
When you explore audio accessibility, it's important to understand that the experiences of players with hearing-related disabilities can also largely differ when playing games. Players who can't hear any audio provided by a game, platform, or hardware device have different experiences than other players. Those players might have varying levels of hearing that can differ in each ear, or differ based on the frequency or volume of sounds presented.
Consult with an array of players with hearing-related disabilities to help you create effective solutions that address each of these unique experiences.
Gaming without audio
Players who can't hear any game audio must typically determine their next steps based on visual and haptic cues alone. These players might miss important game information when it's portrayed through audio alone. For example, live voice among players, in-game sound effects like nearby footsteps or enemy fire, and nonplayer character dialogue can't inform the gameplay of these players.
General approaches to support these players include:
- An option to enable subtitles and captions for all important character dialogue.
- Representing audio cues like enemy footsteps through visual cues within the UI or within captions.
- Supporting accessible player-to-player communication tools like text to speech chat and speech to text chat.
Gaming and partial hearing
Players with hearing-related disabilities might have difficulty hearing sounds of certain frequencies, volume levels, or sounds that come from certain locations. Many game experiences provide multiple sounds simultaneously. For example, there might be areas of a game where background music, character dialogue, effects noises, and live player chat are all actively producing sound. This type of scenario can make it difficult to clearly hear the sound channels that are most important to gameplay.
Approaches to consider for players with partial hearing include:
- The ability to adjust the volume levels for individual classes of audio, such as player chat, music, effects, UI, dialogue, and voice chat.
- The option to enable mono audio output.