Dear AccessWorld Readers,

Welcome to the Fall issue of AccessWorld! Before we discuss the articles in this issue, I have some exciting AccessWorld developments I would like to share with you.

AccessWorld now has its own podcast! The podcast covers a range of topics related to digital inclusion with a focus on blindness and low vision. The podcast releases on the first of every month, and we have two episodes released thus far. Our latest episode discusses the updates found in the recent iOS 17 operating system upgrade, with appearances from long-time AccessWorld authors Judy Dixon and Janet Ingber. You can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or using the podcast app of your choice. You can also find more information on our podcasts page.

In addition to the new AccessWorld podcast, we also have been publishing AccessWorld related content on AFB's main blog. This allows us to publish technology and accessibility related content on a wider range of topics while also providing you more content between issue releases. As an example of some of the AccessWorld content we have published on the blog, Judy and Janet's discussion on the podcast was based on their articles on the blog regarding iOS 17. Judy discussed the accessibility updates while Janet discussed the mainstream features. I also recently produced an article on some useful NVDA addons. You can find the main blog where recently published articles are displayed here.

To begin this issue of AccessWorld, I bring you another article on accessible gaming, this time a deeper dive into accessibility specifically for those who are blind or severely low vision. The article aims to provide actionable information for developers of video games, while also giving you a look at a few games you might enjoy if you yourself are blind or have low vision.

With the holidays around the corner, we know you might be seeking gifts for friends and family. With clothing being a fairly popular gift option, I have put 5 different online clothing stores through their paces to determine their accessibility with a focus on diverse styles and clothing types. At this point, it's generally true that if you shop at a technology based online site like Amazon or Best Buy, or through a massive department store such as Walmart or Target, their sites will almost certainly be accessible. Being focused on technology as a whole, we wanted to also use this piece to explore the landscape for this category of store to get a feel for the general state of accessibility in this sector.

As always, we aim to foster employment among people with blindness and low vision. Our Ability is a website which aims to match job applicants with disabilities with companies interested in hiring this segment of the population. What makes this site unique is that even though it is specifically aimed at applicants with disabilities, job matching is based on your skills, not your disability. In this piece, Janet Ingber interviews the founder of the site as well as gives some details on getting started with Our Ability.

Finally, this month we received a letter from researchers at the Substance Abuse Resources & Disability Issues (SARDI) Program at the Boonshoft School of Medicine. The letter is an article detailing their findings regarding adapting virtual reality so it would be more accessible to people with low vision. Virtual reality looks as if it is going to be a significant presence in the life of many in the near future so we have published this piece in our Inclusive Technology Research track.

As always, I hope you find this issue informative no matter your background and thank you for being a reader of AccessWorld. If you have a question or comment, you can always reach out to me at apreece@afb.org

Wishing you a happy Thanksgiving from all of us here at AccessWorld,

Aaron Preece

AccessWorld Editor in Chief

In our Summer 2023 issue, I wrote an overview article on game accessibility. That article provided a high-level look at game accessibility as a whole, covering multiple different disabilities. For this piece, I wanted to take a deeper dive into game accessibility for people who are blind or have severe low vision. This is the demographic in which I personally fall, and which on the spectrum of game accessibility for those with vision-related disabilities I believe is the most complex.  

For this piece, I will be specifically taking a closer look at game user interfaces (UI), both the UI used out of game (settings, main menus, etc.,) and the UI used during gameplay proper. In addition, we will be taking a more detailed look at the use of sound cues as alternatives for visual information and strategies for providing navigation assistance to this audience. 

My goal with this article is to provide strategies and solutions for game developers, showcase games that implement these solutions to provide examples to follow, while sharing games other gamers with blindness or low vision might enjoy. 

As a note, for this piece, we will be specifically focused on games played on consoles or computers. Some recommendations detailed here may apply to games on mobile touchscreen devices, but they are not the focus of this specific article. 

UI Accessibility 

When we discuss the accessibility of game user interfaces (UI), there are two distinct aspects that are being referenced. One of these is the UI present when a user is making selections out of game. This includes main and settings menus, pause screens, and other interfaces outside of the game that are similar to those you might find in an app or piece of desktop software. On the other hand, there is the UI during gameplay; generally, the text-based information that is presented to the player during gameplay. This essentially covers the information that is always present during gameplay but not directly interactable, or the UI present during gameplay where time becomes a factor, such as during a competitive card game. For this piece, we will be addressing these two types of UI separately.  

As we discussed in the first article, all game text needs to be presented to the user in audio form to make the game accessible. Before we dive into the design of an accessible UI, it is important to take time to discuss how speech can be implemented. In the late 1990s and 2000s, including recorded speech for game text was quite popular amongst hobbyist game developers in the low-vision and blind community. With the advent of better options in regards to Text-to-Speech (TTS) and screen reader integration, this form of text delivery has become far less popular for modern games.  

At this time, the most common method for providing speech is to either push text content to a user's screen reader or implement TTS into the game directly, in practice creating a screen reader for the game from scratch.  

Due to the wide array of programming languages used for game development and the particular complexity of differing game platforms, providing comprehensive technical direction for implementing TTS or screen reader compatibility into video games is outside the scope of this piece. That being said, some common example solutions follow. TOLK is a multi-language solution for providing screen reader access to applications on Windows. An Accessibility Plugin exists for the popular Unity game development environment with compatibility with Windows, iOS, Android, and Mac games as well as other platforms.

Implementing screen reader or TTS into console games will depend on the console in question. For example, Microsoft has made it possible to include TTS available in Xbox games, seemingly through this API. 

Out of Game UI 

This portion of a game's UI includes menus most commonly, along with other text that appears on screen but is not generally interactable by the user. It is essential to be sure that speech can be interrupted either by a key press or when a user moves from one item to another. When speech is allowed to finish without any method for halting it, it can cause significant delays in navigation for someone who is blind or low vision.  

Since every game is different, it is helpful to include hints on how to interact with the UI as a user navigates. For example, when an item is focused and read, speech might be programmed to say something like "Use the Up and Down arrows to navigate through menus and "A" to select". Hints can be useful to alert users to UI elements that need to be interacted with differently from the norm. For example, when adjusting settings such as sound and background music volume, does a user simply use Right and Left arrows to adjust the sliders or must they interact with the control first before being able to adjust it? With hints like this, it is helpful to include a setting to turn them off when a user becomes familiar with an interface. 

Much like hints that are spoken after items are focused, if there is non-interactable text on screen, it should be read after appearing, specifically after whatever interactable element was focused that produced the text. It can be helpful to dedicate a key or key combination to repeating this sort of information if a user needs a refresher. Take, for example, assigning key statistics in a role-playing game. Being able to refer to how a given statistic is used on the fly would be helpful as a user makes decisions.  

In-Game UI 

In this section, we are specifically discussing a game's UI during gameplay, or when time is involved. Time is the key factor: some games where the gameplay is not timed may more resemble the UI discussed in the previous section. For example, a real-time strategy game in which game time is paused while the player makes decisions in regards to building, assigning jobs, research, etc., would likely fall under the previously discussed criteria. 

In an in-game UI, we are normally referencing the sort of information you may be presented with in a Heads-up Display (HUD). Information could include anything such as health, stamina, ammunition, time remaining, score, etc., that the player may need to be able to access during gameplay. There are several methods for presenting this information that are equally valid.  

One method is to only announce information when it changes in a significant way. When keeping the player informed of their current health, it may be announced at specific intervals-75%, 50%, 25%, 15%, 10%, etc., for instance. Another method, commonly employed by blind or low-vision developers, is to dedicate specific commands to speak information on demand. Particularly useful when the game is meant to be played on a computer keyboard, common commands include "H" for health, "S" for score, "T" for Time, letters you might naturally associate with specific information. Some developers choose to design information announcement commands based on hand placement when playing a given game. For a detailed example of this strategy, see our review of the Hearthstone Access Mod.  

Since you only have so much keyboard real estate and games that aim to be controller compatible need to make good use of the limited buttons they have available, it can be useful to provide a shortcut to read the most crucial information on the fly and include other HUD information in a menu format that can be called at will and that pauses gameplay.

Sound Cues and Navigation 

There are as many ways of using audio cues and navigation strategies as one can imagine. Recommendations in these sections will be based on strategies that have a proven track record or are extrapolated from such.  

Using Audio Cues for Visual Objects 

Outside of games that can be made entirely accessible using text (See Hearthstone for an example) it is nearly always necessary to use audio cues to provide an alternative for certain visual information. Note that extra audio cues need not be provided if an object is making sound in some way. For example, if there is a fire hazard that a player must navigate around, the sound fire might provide enough information for the player to avoid on that audio alone. Since sound is relative, we may wish to include an optional sound when the player is one step away from the hazard, to indicate the same information that the sighted player is receiving visually. The game The Vale, an audio-only action role-playing game, uses natural sound and spatial audio to provide all of the information a player needs to interact with the game's world. See this gameplay demonstration for a look at multi-person melee combat, navigation, and a boss battle. 

When designing audio cues, consider all of the attributes of a sound to which you have access. You can communicate a good deal of information using spatial positioning, volume, and pitch. Spatial positioning provides intuitive knowledge of the direction of an object while volume does the same for distance in most cases. Pitch can be used to indicate information that more natural sound might not. Examples include if the audio source is above or below the player, or if it is in front or behind the player. This is true for both 2D and 3D games, pitch can be used to indicate audio sources above or below the player in games such as the 2D side-scrolling Super Mario Bros titles as well as the 3D titles such as Super Mario 64 or Super Mario Odyssey. If a game requires the player to both know the vertical position of audio sources as well as if sources are behind or in front of the player, muffling or otherwise distorting sounds behind the player can be used.  

Artificial sounds, think beeps, chimes, clicks, and others that aren't naturally occurring, are generally used to indicate something that is visual but wouldn't make sound on its own as well as to indicate distances in situations when the relative sound of volume will not suffice. Commonly, artificial sounds are used to indicate the presence of stationary items such as interactable or collectible objects, or when something is within a specific important range. One common use of a sound to indicate proximity is when a player is near a ledge or dropoff. Sounds might include something artificial, or something more natural in this case, such as the sound of crumbling or an audible gasp and stumble from the character. 

These sounds need not be artificial, In the Manamon navigation demonstration from our Summer game accessibility piece, notice that artificial sounds are used for the presence of walls and other characters, while natural sounds are used for other objects, beds, doors, bookshelves and the like.

Navigation strategies for People Who are Blind or Have Low Vision 

Before implementing a navigation strategy, it is important to determine if one is needed at all. In the Manamon demonstration above, notice that the game does not include any other navigation options aside from sounds to indicate the surface the player is walking upon and sounds to indicate proximity of walls and objects. As navigation-based puzzles are a key part of this game, extra navigation options are not provided to the player. Compare this to A Hero's Call where though navigation cues are provided so that the player can explore freely, a solution to provide directions to given key landmarks is also provided. One thing important to notice about the Hero's Call navigation strategy is that speech is used in addition to sound to better aid the player in knowing where they are located.

This strategy is also used in the popular audio zombie survival first-person shooter, Swamp. In Swamp, your character has multiple radar options to indicate if the space around them is clear, obstructed, or obstructed by something that can be fired over or through, a window or wrecked vehicle for example. This radar can be triggered to sweep forward and back on your left or right sides, back and forth in front of you as if you were using a cane, swept behind you, and all in sequence. In addition, as your character enters different zones, roads, sidewalks, buildings, etc., these will be announced to you. Swamp's maps tend to be large and contain many landmarks, so a beacon system has also been implemented. You can set a beacon to a given landmark on your current map whereupon you will be told the direction to its location while a high-pitched beep will play constantly at shorter and shorter intervals as you get closer. For a demonstration of these features, see this video. Note that if the timestamp in the link does not take you to the proper section, the demonstration of Swamp's navigation features begins at 12 minutes and 50 seconds.

The Bottom Line

One of the best ways to determine how to make an aspect of a game accessible is to seek out real-world examples of accessible forms of that aspect. When it comes to accessibility, uniqueness is not the goal, you are simply looking for the most efficient method possible to adapt something from a visual medium to a spoken or auditory one. If you find the perfect solution for your problem, use it even if it is identical to how someone has implemented accessibility in their own game.

I highly recommend taking a look through the games at Audiogames.net. The site lists over 800 games completely accessible to people who are blind or have low vision so is a treasure trove for anyone seeking examples on how to make their games accessible. If you have found a game that has been lost to time, you might be able to find it in the Audio Games Archive, as has been mentioned in previous articles, many accessible games over the past 30 years were created by single programmers who were blind or low vision themselves so may have been lost to time without the archive.

Aaron Preece

As in previous years, November is when we celebrate the Holidays here at AccessWorld. As before, we bring you an article on the accessibility of online shopping but with a new focus.

We have been heartened to see that most major online shopping sites (Amazon, Walmart, Target, etc.) maintain solidly accessible websites. For this piece, we wanted to look at sites outside of this specific sphere. Since clothing is a popular choice for gifts this time of year, we wanted to do a survey of a range of clothing sites to determine where accessibility stands overall in this industry. For this article, we reviewed five different clothing sites: Redbubble, L.L.Bean, Under Armour, J.Crew, and North Face. Sites were reviewed on a Windows PC running Windows 10 using the Firefox web browser and the NVDA screen reader.

When we review sites in the AFB Talent Lab, we categorize the issues we find by severity. For this article, we will be focusing on those issues that create major problems for screen reader users of the sites. For example, if a search field isn't labeled but has the word "Search" in text above it, that would be a very minor issue which wouldn't fall into the testing scope of this piece unless other issues are non-existent.

For this piece, we will be specifically looking at distinct functions of each of these sites. We will be reviewing a site's browse feature, search feature, product page, and purchase process.

Redbubble

Redbubble is a website where graphic artists can sell their designs printed on various items. Clothing makes up a good deal of the sites catalog with a massive range of designs available, likely unavailable elsewhere.

Browsing for or searching for products on Redbubble is quite accessible. The search is labeled in text and once a search is performed, products can easily be navigated using NVDA's "Graphic" shortcut. Filters are also easily discovered, they are under their own heading, and fully accessible.

If you choose to browse for products instead of searching, this method is equally as accessible. After choosing a main category, subcategories, such as men's or women's clothing, appear as graphics under their own heading. The products themselves appear as links under a heading further down the page.

Conveniently, product links are singular, in that if you navigate them using NVDA's "Link" shortcut, the "Add to favorites" button, product name, and creator, are not distinct links. Note that you do need to arrow down to the actual product name link to go to the product page as using the link shortcut places you on the "Add to favorites" button. Even though this is a minor access error, it actually makes for a more usable site as it allows faster navigation through products than if these appeared as separate links. It would be possible to keep this functionality while correcting the error by making the "Add to favorites" button an actual button instead of considering it a link in the code. There is a heading labeled "Shop by Theme" which lists theme categories which appear to a screen reader user as if they would take you to a page displaying products related to that theme. In actuality, this is simply links that cycle an image carousel. When including features such as carousels, it is important to make it clear to screen reader users what they are to avoid confusion; this principle goes for any sort of content on a site.

The product page is quite accessible. You can easily adjust product type, such as the color of a T-shirt, as well as the size. The information on the product you are viewing is well detailed, but this only applies to the type of product, Shirt, hoody, backpack, etc., and not the art that will be printed on the product. This means to be sure you are purchasing the product you actually want, you most likely will want to ask a sighted person to look at the product you are considering, use a visual interpreter such as Aira, or run the product image through an AI image recognition service such as Be My Eyes. For sites of this type, it would be helpful if the developers include an alt-text field where artists are encouraged to describe their art for customers who cannot see product images.

The check-out process is fully accessible; all steps of the check-out process appear on one page and populate as you move from one step to another.

Overall, the shopping experience at Redbubble is fully accessible and the site includes common navigation features, graphics and headings, that make exploring the site efficient. The major access issue is the lack of description for the art that will be printed on products, as the art is the reason to purchase from this site.

L.L.Bean

L.L.Bean produces a variety of clothing and are particularly known for winterwear and loungewear. During my testing, I found the site to be completely accessible. Browsing for clothing is straightforward and searching is as well. The page uses plenty of headings where appropriate and products are sorted in a list for easy navigation. The site describes products minimally but adequately, and selecting sizes and colors is accessible. Check-out was completely accessible, with all steps on one page with the next being populated after the previous was completed.

Under Armour

Under Armour is a well respected athleticwear brand. Much like L.L.Bean, the site was completely accessible. Browsing for clothing was simple, as was searching. The page uses solid structure with headings and other navigation elements for aspects such as filters. Products could be navigated by image using the NVDA shortcut for efficient browsing. Product pages are well designed, again, with properly structured and labeled elements. Descriptions of products were detailed in regards to fabric type, features, and material, but basic in regards to design and appearance. Check-out was fully accessible; compared to the two previous sites, each step was on its own page.

J.Crew

J.Crew produces a range of men's and women's clothing with a focus on more formal clothing. The site was fully accessible but slightly cluttered, but not to an extent where it would make for navigation difficulties. Browsing for items as well as searching could be accomplished without issue and the product details pages are accessible. The store does describe products but with L.L.Bean and Under Armour, descriptions could provide more detail to better explain the appearance of clothing to people unable to see the presented images. All of the check-out information was accessible and on a single page, without the need to move to or expand specific steps.

North Face

North Face produces a range of hiking and winter gear. Again, the site was fully accessible. Notably, search results were not proceeded by headings as was true for other stores but could be reached by first finding the search field and navigating by links afterward. North Face was also notable in that descriptions of products were more detailed than was found at other stores, but might be based on the complexity of clothing items. Nevertheless, this was the store where I felt the most confident in understanding the appearance of the clothing. Again, checkout was fully accessible with steps being listed on separate pages.

The Bottom Line

I was pleasantly surprised with the accessibility of the stores surveyed in this article. I expected to encounter a serious issue at some point, but the only issues encountered were incredibly minor and were barely of note. I did discover that the descriptions provided by most clothing stores were not adequate for me to feel confident that I understood the appearance of what I was purchasing. Sites tended to focus on features, such as material and clothing technology with to-the-point descriptions of clothing attributes such as shape and pockets. Redbubble was notable in that the key feature of the site's clothing, the artwork printed on the items, was not described at all, but I assumed this was because the artwork is being provided by third parties. In this case, having a field where artists can describe their art in detail to be used as alt text for images would be helpful. The other stores were slightly better in their descriptions but fell short in regards to color or pattern in particular. Companies have in-house names for colors, e.g., Summit Blue, Mariner blue, Black 457, etc., which provides no details on the exact shade of the color being presented. Shopping would be significantly more accessible if colors were better described, and if more detailed visual descriptions were provided as alt text for images.

Description issues aside, it is heartening to see how far things have come in regards to general accessibility among specialized markets such as clothing. Even with my concerns regarding clothing descriptions, it is quite possible to shop for clothing independently without encountering any access barriers at the sites detailed here. The brands here are among the more well-known and I would expect other clothing brands of the same age and size would have similarly accessible sites.

Janet Ingber

If you are blind or have low vision, the chances of securing a job are significantly lower compared to someone with sight. Unemployment rates within the blind community are notably high. (For detailed information and statistics, visit this source.)

A highly accessible website called Our Ability offers job recommendations based on your skills, not your vision. Using this platform is free for individuals; companies pay to list their jobs. If creating a profile isn't your preference, you can browse through the extensive list of available jobs.

Our Ability was conceptualized by John D. Robinson, the CEO of the company. I had the privilege of interviewing him for this article. When I initially emailed him for an interview, he responded within approximately 3 minutes, and we had our discussion the following day.

“My name is John Robinson. I am president and founder of Our Ability Incorporated. I am 54 years old, white male, born without the extension of my arms and legs, so I’m a quadruple amputee. When I stand, I stand about 3 feet 8 inches tall. “I’ve been disabled my whole life and I think that has given me the perspective for me to really found and run this organization. What you really should know about me is that after college, I was unemployed for four and a half years.” He obtained his degree from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. He added, “A major part of the reason for my unemployment was because corporate America wasn’t ready for somebody with a profound, visible disability to go into a public-facing world, a sales business world.” Despite this, Robinson had a successful 16-year career overseeing sales operations for television stations. He reflected, “Somewhere around 40 years old, a lot changed.” A local PBS station in his area sought to create a documentary about him, initially intended for that specific station but later distributed to all PBS stations in the U.S. and six other countries. You can view the documentary here. Unfortunately, the documentary lacks description, but it's worth exploring.

Numerous companies requested Robinson to address their employees. He noted, “When I spoke at major corporations, where there were people with obvious disabilities, I realized I was not alone in that unemployment period of time.” This realization motivated Robinson to start his own company.

In 2011, Robinson founded Our Ability with the intention of building a mentor network for people with disabilities. However, he discovered that what they truly sought was employment opportunities. Robinson explained, “What wasn’t happening in the early ‘90s when I was looking for my first job which is happening now is companies do want to hire a diverse workforce. They just don’t know how to find, recruit, and communicate with people with disabilities.”

“Today what we’ve done is we built a Generative AI system that matches people to jobs. We do that because of the struggle we’ve all had in underemployment and unemployment.”

Our Ability comprises four full-time staff members and four contracted individuals, some of whom have disabilities. Kartik Sawhney, the Senior Manager of Technology and Product, is completely blind. Robinson remarked, “If I’m the business, he’s the technology.”

In October, over 15,000 unique users visited the website, and this number continues to grow each month. The website respects user privacy and doesn't inquire about a user's disability, following a model similar to LinkedIn. No personal information, such as social security numbers, is requested.

Using the Site

1. Visit Our Ability's website.
2. To build a profile and access job recommendations, navigate to the "Jobs Ability" link and activate it. Use the "Log In" link or select the "Create a Profile" link. You can log in via Google or use your email and create a password. Robinson recommends the Google login. Then, activate the "Register" link.
3. You can upload your resume to the site. If you have a LinkedIn profile, you can send a PDF version of your resume. For those without a LinkedIn profile or who are unwilling to create one, upload a PDF copy of your resume. The website prefers LinkedIn due to formatting. In either case, it might take about two minutes to upload the file.
4. Once your resume is uploaded, you'll receive ten questions to answer. These questions do not pertain to your disability but aid in matching you with suitable jobs.
5. Upon profile creation, you'll have access to a dashboard with job-related options. The dashboard includes sections for applied jobs, saved jobs, and recommended jobs. Upon logging in, your recommended jobs will be immediately listed.

On the Our Ability homepage, there's a link to their comprehensive list of available jobs. Click on the "Our Ability jobs" link. At the time of this interview, there were 77,020 jobs listed across North America. If you prefer not to create a profile, you can visit this page to view available jobs. The platform offers various search options, such as sorting by state, city, or country, and includes a search field for job titles and keywords. Additionally, there's a link to view all available jobs.

Furthermore, Our Ability introduced a new product, ABLI.AI, an ableist language filter. Robinson elaborated, “We wanted to read through the language that’s in job descriptions, so we created an ableist language filter. We’re running that language filter against jobs on our job board. We’re working with our clients to flag things that might be considered ableist and then make recommendations on changing them.”

The Our Ability website contains abundant information, featuring details about their team, news, contact information, and new projects. It stands as an excellent resource for individuals seeking employment opportunities.