Hi, You are exactly right. a blind gamer can't just send a mainstream developer a vague or half-baked suggestion for adding accessibility when chances are they don't even know that accessible games exist let alone how to create one. I've gone through college level programming courses, and I can say from personal experience the issue of accessibility isn't even discussed at the educational level and its up to the student to find that information out on his/her own once they become employed. this leaves a huge gap in training and education dealing with any kind of accessibility related programming. The end result is simple ignorance of what needs to be done, and the only way to correct that is by giving specific and detailed examples when and where possible.
For example, after I lost my sight my local school board enrolled me in a school in Canton Ohio equipped for disabled children. At first that was all well and good because I learned basic mobility skills, learned braille, and all the other life skills I needed to become independent. After I reached high school I wanted to return to Smithville, my home school, and the school board initially denied my request based on their belief they would have to hire a special teacher who knew braille, that I'd need a lot of expensive school books, someone to lead me from class to class, and a bunch of other stereotypes that were based on ignorance of the kinds of technologies that were available in the early 1990's. So what I did was write my own proposal which explained how a totally blind student could function in a mainstream school using Openbook for scanning and reading printed material, Jaws so I could use a computer to write my reports and other assignments, that my Braille N' Speak could print both braille and print documents, how a teacher could record my test on an audio tape, etc. By being very detailed and specific on how I could function in a normal high school with some adaptive technology or specialized software I proved to the Smithville school board I was able to put their fears to rest. I spent my Junior and Senior year in a standard mainstream school without a shred of specialized help and made a's and b's in all of my courses. The point I want to make here is that by being very detailed and specific I was able to go before a group of people who knew absolutely nothing about blindness and proved to them I could be successful in a completely mainstream school. When dealing with software developers and other businesses we need to equally have our act together and explain to them in detail how access can be accomplished. Unless we are willing to take the time to research and write such a proposal we are going to continue to get overlooked and ignored. Cheers! On 12/17/11, Clement Chou <[email protected]> wrote: > I fully agree, Thomas. Bad spelling and punctuation is easily recognizable > and distinguishable between someone who speaks English and someone who isn't > a native English speaker. I cringe as well every time I get emails from this > list or others where people just don't check their spelling, or make grammar > errors that look very, very silly. And another thing about outreach to > developers, and to sighted people in general if you want to adapt > something... I notice a lot of people have very basic ideas of what > accessibility in a game, and those tend to be the ideas that they shoot off > to the developers, and those ideas can be very vague. I myself know from > experience that one simple solution suggested doesn't usually do much. One > has to come up with a list of possible ideas, and then present them in a > professional and mature way. If I hadn't learned it, I would never have got > into the field of Martial arts... some teachers are dead set against > visually impaired or disabled people, not because of dislike or > discrimination... but because of ignorance. But once you suggest to them how > this aspect or that aspect can be adapted to suit people like you, then > they're willing to try. And when you excell, you impress them. It's the same > scenario here. Good communications skills, presentable writing, and a good > solid set of ideas will go further along in accessibility than writing a > developer and saying, "Hey, your game isn't accessible! I don't know if > this'll work, but here's an idea that I just came up with 2 minutes ago > which I don't have all the details for." --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected]. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://mail.audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [email protected].
