UnityAccessibilityToolkit (UA11Y): Developer Tool and Roadmap to Make Games More Accessible for People with Vision Impairments

Abstract

An increasing number of game productions rely on accessibility features. Large productions like The Last of Us demonstrate what is possible in this area, but many games still lack essential accessibility features. Smaller productions often lack the knowledge and resources to implement different accessibility features. In the first part of this paper, we investigate how people with vision impairments play video games and compare current accessibility features. Based on our findings, we present a roadmap and guidelines for improving game accessibility for individuals with a color vision deficiency, low vision, or any form of vision impairment. In the third part, we introduce the UnityAccessibilityToolkit, a toolkit for game developers to quickly and easily integrate accessibility elements for players with vision impairments into a game. We evaluated the toolkit with nine developers who were challenged to make a simple match-3 game more accessible. Our results demonstrate that the Unity toolkit is easy and fast to use, and that important accessibility features can be implemented quickly.