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Game accessibility guidelines

  • Basic
  • Intermediate
  • Advanced
  • Full list
  • Why and how

Advanced

Complex adaptations, usually only used when aiming for specific niche audiences. Considerations that are only applicable to certain game mechanics, require more budget, specialist knowledge / advice to implement, or don’t benefit as wide a range of people. However they have incredibly high value for the people who do benefit from them.

Motor

(Control / mobility)

  • Allow play in both portrait and landscape
  • Do not make precise timing essential to gameplay – offer alternatives, actions that can be carried out while paused, or a skip mechanism
  • Include a cool-down period (post acceptance delay) of 0.5 seconds between inputs
  • Provide very simple control schemes that are compatible with assistive technology devices, such as switch or eye tracking

Cognitive

(Thought / memory / processing information)

  • Provide an option to disable blood and gore
  •  Provide pre-recorded voiceovers for all text, including menus and installers
  • Avoid any sudden unexpected movement or events
  • Allow all narrative and instructions to be replayed
  • Use symbol-based chat (smileys etc)
  • Provide an option to turn off / hide all non interactive elements

Vision

  • Allow the font size to be adjusted
  • Provide a pingable sonar-style audio map
  • Provide pre-recorded voiceovers for all text, including menus and installers
  • Provide a voiced GPS
  • Allow easy orientation to / movement along compass points
  • Ensure that all key actions can be carried out by digital controls (pads / keys / presses), with more complex input (eg. analogue, gesture) not required, and included only as supplementary / alternative input methods
  • Ensure screenreader support, including menus & installers
  • Use distinct sound / music design for all objects and events
  • Simulate binaural recording
  • Provide an audio description track

Hearing

  • Ensure that subtitles/captions are cut down to and presented at an appropriate words-per-minute for the target age-group
  • Provide signing
  • Use symbol-based chat (smileys etc)

Speech

  • Base speech recognition on hitting a volume threshold (eg. 50%) instead of words
  • Use symbol-based chat (smileys etc)

General

  • Include every relevant category of impairment (motor, cognitive etc) amongst play-testing participants, in representative numbers based on age / demographic of target audience
  • Allow settings to be saved to different profiles, at either game or platform level
  • Realtime text <-> speech transcription

All guidelines

Three cogs, smallest coghighlightedBasic
Three cogs, medium sized cog highlightedIntermediate
Three cogs, largest cog highlightedAdvanced
Three cogs, all  highlightedFull list
ExcelExcel checklist download

Help & advice

How to work with these guidelines

FCC Chairman's Award for Advancement in Accessibility
finalist 2016, tiga games industry awards
DFA foundation best practice award, Horizon Interactive Bronze Winner, 7-128 industry & community leader

About the guidelines

A collaborative effort between a group of studios, specialists and academics, to produce a straightforward developer friendly reference for ways to avoid unnecessarily excluding players, and ensure that games are just as fun for as wide a range of people as possible.

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