Visual accessibility fundamentals

  • 12 minutes

In the previous unit, you learned about the process of how games are played through the lens of accessibility. This process begins with games providing information to the player through sensory channels like vision, audio, touch, or haptics.

In this unit, learn about the relationship between the portrayal of visual information and a player's ability to consume and use this information to inform play.

Vision and gaming

Many gaming experiences today use visual cues or indicators to guide player success. In game accessibility, think about the following questions related to visual information:

  • Is important information represented through visual means alone, like text-based menus and instructions and onscreen icons?
  • Is the visual representation of this information accessible to players with visual disabilities?
  • How is gameplay affected if a player can't access this visual information because of the lack of accessible supports?

Creating truly accessible experiences requires effort beyond the implementation of accessibility features and settings alone. You build a truly accessible experience by design. Understanding what unintentional barriers are, and how they can block player progress, is critical to gaming accessibility knowledge. This awareness can ideally prevent unintentional barriers from being implemented within the game's design altogether.

In the following video, learn how to identify common visual elements that can present inaccessible experiences to players.

Vision and disability

When you create accessible visual experiences, you need an awareness of visual disabilities and their potential effect on player experiences. This awareness helps you to understand that:

  • Accessible designs and solutions aren't a one-size-fits-all approach. A setting that assists one player with visual disabilities doesn't necessarily provide an effective solution for all players with visual disabilities.
  • Different types of visual disabilities affect player experiences in different ways.
  • Diverse player experiences need to include diverse player perspectives throughout the entire development process of the gaming experiences you work on to ensure they're truly accessible.

Important

The following information is intended to broaden your awareness of vision and disability in the context of gaming. Before you start development work, consult or collaborate with actual players with visual disabilities. These players are the experts in their own experiences. This community's feedback must be included to inform effective accessible development solutions within the context of your specific game, platform, product, or experience.

Visual disabilities might generally affect player experiences in any combination of the following ways:

  • A complete lack of sight or ability to see game visuals
  • Varying degrees of blurriness when viewing game visuals
  • An incomplete view, or missing portions of the screen or UI
  • Difficulty distinguishing colors within the UI
  • Impacted depth perception and more

Before you start development or engage players, consider the following aspects of visual disability. Learn how they pose the need for targeted solutions that are informed by the experiences of many different players.

Gaming without vision

Your future customers probably include players who can't see any aspect of their screen or gaming device. These players must interpret all information from a game through audio or haptic channels alone. Common visual accessibility settings like adjusting text size or contrast aren't helpful for these players.

Think about how all visual information in a game can be represented entirely through nonvisual means. For example:

  • Ensure all text-based elements can be read aloud via screen narration. Elements include menus, heads-up display, and text-based player chat.
  • Represent environmental cues such as the location of a nearby exit door, an interactable object, or an enemy character through spatial audio.

Gaming and low vision

Low vision is a broad term that includes a spectrum of visual abilities. Players with low vision might have a cloudier, blurrier, or less complete view of what's on their game screen.

Note

The extent of cloudiness, blurriness, or completeness of view can vary from player to player, which is why providing multiple options for customization is important.

Players with low vision can experience difficulty reading text or seeing onscreen visual elements. To ensure gameplay experiences are accessible for players with varying degrees of low vision, consider providing players with customization options for the following:

  • The size of text in menus, within the game environment, and within chat-based player-to-player communications
  • The size of visual elements like waypoint markers, crosshairs, and other visual indicators
  • The color and contrast of text and visual elements by enabling solid backgrounds against them and providing choice of color for the element and its background color
  • The location that visual elements like chat boxes, notifications, HUD displays, and more appear onscreen

Check your knowledge

1.

Which of the following options is most likely to introduce unintentional visual barriers?

2.

Which of the following options would likely be useful in assisting a player without vision?

3.

Which of the following options isn't a reason that developers should have an awareness of diverse player experiences when they learn about game accessibility?