Introduction
Understanding the long and growing list of industrywide best practices for game accessibility can seem overwhelming. A single game can have hundreds of different visual, audio, input, and cognitive aspects that are likely applicable.
Imagine your team is developing a new game. You've identified a host of features that the game should include. The goal is to adhere to accessibility best practices while creating as many of these features as possible. Your team is inundated with information, and is unsure where to start. They first need a foundational understanding of the accessibility concepts that individual best practices established today are modeled from.
After a better understanding of general accessibility best practices is established, your team seeks more targeted guidance. Specifically, they need a comprehensive list of game accessibility best practices specific to individual game mechanics and elements.
In this module, learn about foundational accessibility concepts like the importance of customization, using multiple channels to portray information, and flexibility regarding task completion in games. You'll also learn about the Xbox Accessibility Guidelines and how to use this resource as a guardrail when you develop accessible experiences.
Learning objectives
By the end of this module, you can:
- Describe the foundational best practice concepts for games and platforms.
- Demonstrate proper implementation of these concepts broadly across different types of game components and mechanics.
- Identify components of the Xbox Accessibility Guidelines and describe how each component can be used as a tool for ideation and testing to help ensure gaming products are accessible to players with disabilities.