How Sony Is Approaching Accessibility For Disabled Gamers (#gamesUR - September 2015)

Over 20% of gamers have some kind of impairment. Accessibility for gamers with disabilities can be cheap and easy if considered early enough, means business benefit for studios and human benefit for gamers, and is often just good game design. Accessibility in games still lags behind other industries.

Over 20% of gamers have some kind of impairment. Accessibility for gamers with disabilities can be cheap and easy if considered early enough, means business benefit for studios and human benefit for gamers, and is often just good game design.

Accessibility in games still lags behind other industries. But that’s rapidly changing, and user research teams have a critical role to play.

An important development has been the production of gameaccessibilityguidelines.com. Ian Hamilton will give insight into how it came about, the principles behind it, and data and anecdotes on its reception and uptake.

At PlayStation accessibility is becoming an increasingly important topic, from the accessibility features being added in the latest PS4 system update, to the work that the user research team has been doing with development teams.

Following on from the background on the guidelines, Mark Friend will share how the user research team at SCEE have been working with them to start bringing more accessibility features in, further accessibility research he has conducted, and ways he has succeeded in getting developers to engage with the topic. Finally, he will talk about plans for the future, and taking accessibility further in PlayStation titles.