Xbox will let people with disabilities test game accessibility
JC Torres - Feb 16, 2021, 9:04pm CST
Games have become even bigger last year, partly due to many people being stuck at home. As prevalent as these interactive digital experiences may be, most of them have been designed with majority of gamers in mind, a majority that is made up of able-bodied people. Although some games do try to cater to gamers with disabilities, many still don’t especially on more locked-down platforms that don’t make it easy to customize games and controls for this subset of people. Continuing a journey it started in 2019, Microsoft’s Xbox is starting a new program that will help game developers design their games with accessibility in mind even before the title is launched.
Microsoft this week revealed a new testing platform geared towards helping developers engineer and refine the accessibility of their games.
Developers can now send their Xbox or PC titles directly to Microsoft and have it measured against Xbox Accessibility Guidelines.
As outlined in a blog post by gaming accessibility senior program manager Brannon Zahand, developers will receive comprehensive feedback and notes where issues are found, complete with reproduction steps, screenshots, and any other relevant information.
Furthermore, in order to help developers understand the potential impact of their design decisions, Microsoft will include links to gaming accessibility and inclusive design documentation, nonprofits and industry-recognised subject matter experts, platform-specific technical documentation, and more.
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Microsoft offers new accessibility testing service for PC and Xbox games
As gaming has grown from niche to mainstream over the past decades, it has also become both much more, and much less, accessible to people with disabilities or other considerations. Microsoft aims to make the PC and Xbox more inclusive with a new in-house testing service that compares games to the newly expanded Xbox Accessibility Guidelines.
The Microsoft Game Accessibility Testing Service, as it’s called, is live now and anyone releasing a game on Windows or an Xbox platform can take advantage of it.
“Games are tested against the Xbox Accessibility Guidelines by a team of subject matter experts and gamers with disabilities. Our goal is to provide accurate and timely feedback, turned around within seven business days,” said Brannon Zahand, senior gaming accessibility program manager at the company.
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