Games 4 Rehab - Sheryl's blog - How much do you know about accessibility and videogames?

How much do you know about accessibility and videogames?

Posted: 4/22/2010 - 1 comment(s) [ Comment ] - 0 trackback(s) [ Trackback ]

This was sent to my by Mark Barlet, President and CEO of AbleGamers Foundation.

Hey AbleGamers,

This is Mark Barlet, President and CEO of the AbleGamers Foundation, I wanted to share with an event that AGF is hosting next month in Boston Mass. Chances are you are one of the millions of people worldwide dealing with a chronic, or lifelong, even a temporary disability there is a chance you know a lot about videogame accessibility. This includes knowing that many games aren't as accessible as they should be. With videogames becoming an even bigger part of most people's lives, including for work and their own health, videogame accessibility is still not getting the attention it requires.

Games Accessibility Day, now in its third year, is one of several efforts aimed at improving dialogue and best practices around the creation and adaptation of all videogames for people with chronic, lifelong, or temporary disabilities including both physical, and cognitive disabilities. Games Accessibility Day is scheduled & produced by the Games for Health Project which is supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Pioneer Portfolio. Critical assistance and partnership for the day is provided by the AbleGamers Foundation and the Serious Games Initiative. This single-track conference now covers a wide swath of information useful to developers, researchers, those who work with people with disabilities, and more.

Attending Games Accessibility Day is a great way to get up-to-speed on the resources, best practices, and key needs necessary to make better games in general as well as for people with specific disabilities that might prevent them from fully enjoying a videogame, or even accessing it to begin with. As games move from being just consumer entertainment to efforts for learning, health, corporate training, and more - there is far less wiggle room for ignoring the engineering and design requirements to make a game as accessible as possible.

Some day we will have the tools, knowledge, and capabilities to make every game far more accessible then they often are. To help bring that day about please attend, if you are not able to make it, please share this email with someone.