Angel Jaramillo-Alcazar

Mobile Serious Games: An Accessibility Assessment for People with Visual Impairments

Nowadays, serious games allow to educate in an amused way in different areas. They have become a great tool in the learning process. However, the vast majority do not focus on vulnerable groups such as visually impaired people. On the other hand, the use of mobile devices has been growing and have become an important actor in the learning process, because there are many serious games developed for environments in this devices. Despite this, accessibility for visually impaired has not been considered as a necessary element in the development of this kind of video games. Some authors and companies of development of video games have proposed general guidelines that recommend for the construction of this type of applications. However, these initiatives have not been formalized so they need to be consolidated and analyzed to define a model for the accessibility assessment of video games oriented to people with visual impairments. This paper presents a compilation and analysis of accessibility guidelines for the development of video games for people with visual impairment. It also proposes a categorization of guidelines that can be used to analyze the level of accessibility of a video game and especially of serious games. As a case study, this categorization is used to evaluate some selected mobile serious games and identify their level of accessibility for people with visual impairment. We propose an analysis tool for those who wish to develop mobile serious games for the visually impaired.

A Serious Game Accessible to People with Visual Impairments

Serious games allow people to learn through fun activities. This type of video game has a growing demand and its use has spread to several areas of education. However, accessibility for several kinds of disabilities has not been considered in its design due to the challenges it poses. However, there are video game development companies that have defined certain accessibility guidelines for several kinds of impairments. Many accessible games have been evaluated for different types of impediments and a set of high and low-level accessibility strategies has been obtained so that game developers can use them to improve their designs. These initiatives allow the development of serious accessible games in different areas of education. This article presents a serious game proposal accessible to people with visual impairments. The video game is aimed at reinforcing the binary calculation skills of engineering students.

A Mobile Serious Games Assessment Tool for People with Motor Impairments

Accessibility is a feature that often is not considered in the design of products or services and video games market is not the exception. Serious games is a category of video games that allows to educate in different areas through fun. They have become an important support tool in the learning process. However, most serious games do not focus on vulnerable groups such as people with motor impairments. On the other hand, the number of mobile serious games has increased with the use of mobile devices. Despite this, accessibility for people with motor impairments has not yet been considered a necessary feature in the development of this type of video games. Some video game developer groups recommend general accessibility guidelines for the design of such applications. However, it has become necessary to formalize, consolidate and analyze these initiatives in order to define a model for evaluating the accessibility of video games for people with motor impairments. This paper presents a compilation and analysis of accessibility guidelines for the development of video games for people with motor impairments. It also proposes a categorization of existing guidelines that allow to evaluate a video game accessibility level. As a case study, these accessibility guidelines are used to assess some mobile serious games and identify their accessibility level for people with motor impairments. We propose an assessment tool for those who wish to develop accessible serious games for people with motor impairments on mobile devices.