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Game accessibility guidelines

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Ensure interactive elements / virtual controls are large and well spaced, particularly on small or touch screens

I tried the game and the buttons are too small and too close to each other for me, same for title screen buttons. I really want to like the game but it is a pain to control!
Sved, via Distractionware

Established research on touch hit areas is a good starting point. 2.4cm has been found to be the ideal size for touch screens, but impractical for smaller phone screens, so 0.96cm is the recommendation for phones.

Bear in mind that people with either reduced accuracy or low vision will find even this difficult so use them as a minimum rather than a fixed size to aim for. Buttons also shouldn’t be close to each other. If they are, they need to be larger again to compensate.

This also applies to cursor driven interfaces (mouse/analogue stick/motion detecting), where gamers with impaired precision will also have difficulty accurately targetting small elements.

Best practice example: Flappy Bird
Best practice example: Rush Rally

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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