[games_access] Top 3 for indie games

[d. michelle hinn]

>  > which features have the biggest impact (hopefully limiting
>>  to 3, maybe 4). Where is the top 10 list online? I would
>>  love to see that, maybe it will be do-able for our titles
>>  to cover your top 10.
>
>I've got two drafts of it...I don't know which Michelle et.
>al. decided to use for the handout at GDC'06, but the
>content is pretty much the same:
>
>http://tim.thechases.com/top10.pdf
>http://tim.thechases.com/top10_2.pdf
>
>It was originally drafted at
>http://www.igda.org/wiki/index.php/Top_Ten
>
>where there are lots of other ideas as well, that over time
>were whittled down to a top-10 list.  Some may have some
>practical implementation ideas in there too.


Yes, we used this at GDC:
http://tim.thechases.com/top10_2.pdf -- that was the list that formed 
the basis for our roundtables. The list came about because of what 
you are saying, Kelly, that sometimes a top "whatever" list is a 
great way to get started. So I hope that it helps you out -- let us 
know if we can help more by explaining the issues in more detail.

>  > It feels like we almost need to hire a contractor who
>>  specializes in this stuff to sort out what issues would be
>>  in our game because I know I'm not familiar with the full
>>  range of accessibility problems in games and the range of
>>  options we have for fixing them. For instance, I've heard
>>  about color-blindness and issues with contrast but am not
>>  certain how people go about fixing these problems in a 3D
>  > world.

I used to work at MS Games as a usability engineer but we never 
covered accessibility there. That was something that I've always 
worked on during my own time. But I have run usability/accessibility 
tests before and, as Tim said, the methods are very similar -- it 
just takes recruiting some gamers with disabilities. And Tim is also 
right -- universities, if you can get access, are great places to 
start.

Michelle