[games_access] Need officially support from the SIG

[Kwasi Mensah]

So I used the WCAG in my Gamasutra post because they were the closest thing
to TCR/TRCs I could find for accessibility. All of the other reading I could
find on accessibility guidelines didn't have their requirements organized as
an easily verifiable list of things to do which is what a professional QA
team needs. I don't think we'll see a major adoption of a unified set of
guidelines unless they're broken down that way.

The set of guidelines Eleanor posted at
http://blindcomputergames.com/guidelines/guidelines.html were published
after I wrote my post. They're broken down into easily verifiable steps and
are game specific which seems to be closer to what you're looking for. But
in an effort to consolidate the number of different places people have to
look to to make sure their game is accessible, could gaming specific
guidelines be an addendum to the WCAG? The WCAG is more established and
there is a fair amount of overlap with what's needed in games.

-Kwasi

On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 9:29 AM, Jonathan Chetwynd <j.chetwynd at btinternet.com
> wrote:

> Sandra,
>
> the WCAG2.0 standard is one of a number designed within W3C for web
> documents,
> it predates HTML5 and the technologies that enable open-web browser based
> games.
> ARIA & RDF provide potential means to help make such web games more
> accessible.
>
> The open-web Go game application at http://www.peepo.com follows W3C
> accessibility guidelines,
> and is accessible to a wide variety of input devices including mouse,
> keyboard, touchscreen & hands-free.
>
> I have been lobbying for some years, within W3C for a web games group, to
> help inform development of such  new technologies, including accessibility,
> and in reality professional game developers need to fund and help inform
> such development.
>
> This is a huge task, and relies on production companies wishing to engage
> the public in their games through web interfaces,
> much of this promotion is currently proprietary, and may use for instance
> Adobe Flash.
>
> A more in-depth analysis is covered in my  chapter: Browser-native games
> that use real-world xml data,
> from the book:  Business, Technological and Social Dimensions of Computer
> Games,
> and just about to be published:
> http://www.igi-global.com/bookstore/TitleDetails.aspx?TitleId=46177
>
> regards
>
> Jonathan Chetwynd
> http://www.peepo.com
>
>
>
> On 8 Mar 2011, at 20:49, Sandra Uhling wrote:
>
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I need the officially support from this SIG.
>>
>> In Germany we have experts for web and software
>> accessibiity that want to recommend the WCAG2.0 for games.
>>
>> Can we write an officially statement that we do not recommend the WCAG2.0
>> for games?
>> Games are not Software, games need their own recommention.
>>
>> I know that some parts can be used and some can be used with little
>> changes.
>> But the problem is that you need Game Accessibility knowledge for this.
>>
>>
>> I learnt that experts for web and software accessibility do not understand
>> game accessibility.
>> They do not understand the special needs and just adapt the rules of the
>> WCAG for games.
>> Also this would be very bad and can bring trouble to game designers and
>> game developers.
>>
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Sandra
>>
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>>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> The main SIG website page is http://igda-gasig.org
>



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