Accessibility Dos and Don'ts

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Control schemes

Do:

• Make your menus work with everything
• Make your keys rebindable
• Make your sensitivity adjustable
• Allow simpler control schemes if possible
• Add these features EARLY

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Neurodiversity

Do:

• Put buttons in places that make sense. Make them look like buttons.
• Tween your UI whenever possible - it helps people keep track of changes
• Test your game for motion sickness, simulation sickness, and epilepsy.
• Make sure head-bob can be turned off and field of view can be changed.
• Make your settings menu navigable with a keyboard AND gamepad.
• Let people turn off screenshake and flashing visual effects.
• Add dyslexic font options if your game is text heavy. Increase spacing between letters for readability. Left-aligned text is preferred for left-to-right languages; don't justify your text alignment!

Don't:

• Accelerate when you tween your player’s motion. ESPECIALLY in VR.
• Put moving or distracting backgrounds behind your UI or your text. If you do, allow them to be turned off.
• Put time limits on interactions. If an interaction requires button-mashing, add a toggle to let the player “hold” the button instead.
• Use ableist language.

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Gender and sexuality

Do:

• Allow users to opt-out
• Understand what you’re actually asking—and ask that

Don’t:

• Use radio buttons for gender select
• Only have two options
• Make the question compulsory
• Always have ‘male’ as the default

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Character creators

Do:

• Randomise the default character(s)
• Ask what you need to know, not just what everyone else asks
• Provide options for body diversity (e.g. shape, size, characteristics)
• Consider the options you have given your player—who are you including and who are you excluding?

Don’t:

• Make a white, middle-aged, able-bodied man the default
• Restrict options arbitrarily (i.e. clothing or voice due to gender)
• Make assumptions

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Visuals

Do:

• Make your game colour-blind accessible. Consider using Brewer palettes, which have been made to suit all forms of colour-blindness.
• Have adjustable UI/text size if possible.
• Check the contrast of your text.Give it a black outline if necessary.
• Have brightness/contrast adjustment in your game.

Don't:

• Use colour on its own to convey information.

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Audio

Do:

• Have subtitles if you have voice over. 79% of players prefer subtitles.
• Subtitle all background noises too, and allow different types of subtitles to be turned on and off.
• Consider letting people change how subtitles look.
• Have separate volume controls SFX, speech and music. If possible, add a mono toggle for people who have difficulty hearing in one ear audio toggle.
• Have visuals to match any sound cues in your game.
• Consider TTS if voice-over is too costly.

Audio online

Do:

• Have a visual cue when someone is talking
• Support text chat as well as voice
• Let people pick if they want to play with others who use voice chat (or not)
• Try limited phrases or emoji based chat, if you don't want to deal with rude language. It’s been shown to be a good way to foster a less toxic playerbase too!

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Takeaways

• Start thinking about accessibility and inclusivity early
• Always ask questions
• Don’t expect people to consult for free
• Consider why you need information from your player
• Don’t make assumptions based on the information you receive
• If you offend someone, use it as a chance to learn and be better
• Access resources, learn from good examples, and improve yourself

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Resources

• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines • w3.org/TR/WCAG20/
• WCAG automated testing • wave.webaim.org or tenon.io/testNow.php
• Accessibility Developer Tools • Official Google plugin for Chrome
• Game Accessibility Guidelines • gameaccessibilityguidelines.com
• Polyglot Gamedev Translations • github.com/PolyglotGamedev
• Arabic support for unity plugin • Konash/arabic-support-unity
• Bad "Arabic" in games • NopeNotArabic.tumblr.com
• Colorblindness Simulator • color-blindness.com or coblis-color-blindness-simulator
• Colorblind safe palettes (Brewer Palettes) • colorbrewer2.org or mkweb.bcgsc.ca/brewer
• Info about Dyslexia and fonts • ccd.edu.au/news/articles/2016/dyslexie/index.html
• Todd Harper • chaoticblue.com
• Queerly Represent Me • queerlyrepresent.me
• Rudeism • twitch.tv/rudeism
• #a11y • Digital accessibility hashtag (A - one - one - Y)

2017/11/01