Luna Rasheed
Living in a world built for primarily able-bodied people as a disabled person can be frustrating, enlightening– a whole mixed bag of emotions and experiences. Many have to form a plan for navigating public and private spaces, like on work buildings, a friend’s home, or even public transportation. There are, of course, measures taken to accommodate different body types in certain spaces, whether that be physical or digital, and it’s these measures that make life just that more manageable. It’s important to try and bridge that gap to make these spaces a place for everyone to participate, and if we can’t, listen to voices that are being underrepresented. As developers, we have the power to make our projects more accessible no matter what field we are in, and implementing these accommodations for your audience is not only crucial for disability justice, but for creative justice too.
So, what kinds of accommodations can we implement to better suit our audience?
There’s already a ton becoming more commonplace in creative spaces, like closed captioning, content warnings and disclaimers, mono audio mode, and more. We can also make deliberate choices in our game design, like supplementing color-themed puzzles with identifiable symbols for color-blind folk. Epic Games has some examples1 of measures taken in many of their games separated by visual, audio, controls, and gameplay features.
In a perfect world, every piece of media would have no barriers of access, but that isn’t always possible in a more realistic sense. Still, the answer to finding the best measure of accommodations for an artist’s creation is, as always, community. We already know what needs to be added, and what more can be done will come with time and fresh eyes from diverse backgrounds. Here are some good resources2 for a more in-depth lens, gathered by research assistant Michael Smith, with a focus on the technology that enables these accommodations to be put into place.
There’s a lot of work to be done, but we take steps every day to make space for
everyone with a passion for the arts to come to the table and share their joy with the world. Our work isn’t done, but it’s powerful work worth doing. Take some time to consider a project of yours within these metrics. What’s missing? Is there more to be done? Most of all: who are you reaching, and who is trying to reach back?
1- Epic Games’ Game Accessibility: https://www.ea.com/en-gb/accessibility/games
2- Resources:
Credit – Micheal Smith, Research Assistant, he/him,
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-g-s-smith/
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Microsoft, (2024). Use live captions to better understand audio – Microsoft Support
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