KAP – Unity Vision Accessibility Plugin
Author: Graz University of Technology
Published: 2024/03/11
Post type: Games – Peer Reviewed: N/A
Content: Summary – Major – Related Posts
Synopsis: The toolkit focuses on visually impaired gamers and makes it easier for game developers to implement player aids for people with disabilities. Games should be open to as many people as possible, which is why it is so important to make them more accessible to people with disabilities. The Game Lab at TU Graz is constantly researching these types of solutions and other topics related to accessibility in computer games.
- Unity (game)
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Unity is a cross-platform game engine developed by Unity Technologies, first announced and released in June 2005 at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference as a game engine for Mac OS provides a system for designing game scenes or applications for 2D, 2.5D and 3D. The game engine is designed for teams with a mix of technical and non-technical skills. The engine has been gradually expanded to support a variety of desktop, mobile, console and virtual reality platforms.
Main summary
The growing popularity of video games is putting increasing attention on their accessibility for people with disabilities. Although large productions are increasingly taking this into account by adding accessibility features, this aspect is usually completely absent in independent productions due to lack of resources.
To facilitate the implementation of accessibility features, Klemens Strasser developed a set of freely accessible tools for the Unity game engine as part of his master’s thesis at the Institute for Interactive Systems and Data Science at the Graz University of Technology (TU Graz). It is available for free on GitHub. (https://github.com/KlemensStrasser/KAP). This makes it easier to integrate support tools for people with visual impairments into a game project. Klemens Strasser, together with his master’s thesis director, Johanna Pirker, has published in an article the toolkit and an action guide for greater accessibility in games.
Help with orientation
When creating the “toolbox”, Klemens Strasser focused on four points:
(1) Support in operating menus
(2) Perception of the game environment.
(3) Fixed network control
(4) Free navigation if the character can move in all directions.
The first three points could be solved with a screen reader, but for free navigation it was necessary to implement a so-called navigation agent. This guides players to a destination they have specified via an audio cue after they have calculated the route to get there.
Continued…
For the screen reader solution to facilitate menu operation, environmental perception and control on a grid, it was first necessary to capture all visible and usable objects and characters on the screen. A tool known as an accessibility signifier was used to recognize the elements and assign them a label, traits, value and description. The game transfers this information to the screen reader used by the players, which reads it aloud to them.
Continued…
Developers with positive comments
The toolset was evaluated in a test with nine game developers, all of whom had university training in software engineering. Your task was to implement it in a simple match-3 game where the goal is to place three identical symbols or items next to each other by moving them.
The feedback from the developers was always positive. The implementation was described as simple, the task was easy to understand, and they were comfortably oriented in the toolset. Before the test, only three of the developers had worked with accessibility features, but afterward most of them wanted to use them for their next project.
“Games should be open to as many people as possible, which is why it is so important to make them more accessible for people with disabilities,” says Klemens Strasser.
“With the Accessibility Toolkit for Unity, we want to make it as easy as possible for independent developers to implement these options. Given that, according to the WHO, 253 million people worldwide live with a visual impairment, this would include a group very large. However, there is still a lot to do, as there are many other deficiencies for which easy-to-implement solutions must be offered.
The Game Lab at TU Graz is constantly researching these types of solutions and other topics related to accessibility in computer games.
Years of success as an independent game developer
Klemens Strasser himself has been working on the issue of game accessibility for several years. Already during his studies and after completing his master’s degree in Computer Science at the Graz University of Technology (TU Graz), he independently developed games that take accessibility into account. In 2015 he won the Apple Design Award in the Student category with his game Elementary Minute, and was nominated for the award in the Inclusivity category in 2022 with Letter Rooms and 2023 with Ancient Board Game Collection. His games published for iOS have been downloaded more than 200,000 times to date.
Attribution/Source(s):
This quality-reviewed publication from our Accessible Games and Games section was selected for distribution by the editors of Disabled World because of its likely interest to readers in our disabled community. Although content may have been edited for style, clarity, or length, the article “Game Lab Introduces Unity Accessibility Toolkit” was originally written by the Graz University of Technology and submitted for publication on 03/11/2024. If you require further information or clarification, you can contact the Graz University of Technology at tugraz.at website. Disabled World makes no warranties or representations in connection therewith.
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Permanent link: Game Lab Introduces Unity Accessibility Toolkit
Cite this page (APA): Graz University of Technology (2024, March 11). Game Lab introduces the Unity Accessibility Toolkit. Disabled world. Retrieved March 12, 2024 from www.disabled-world.com/entertainment/games/unity.php
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