[games_access] Unity and screenreaders issue

[Berg, James]

If someone has a request for Unreal, I (or likely Ian) could bounce it to Ben Lewis-Evans, who is Celia’s successor. He runs their User Research department.

Cheers!
James Berg
Senior UX Researcher – Electronic Arts

From: games_access [mailto:games_access-bounces at lists.igda.org] On Behalf Of Chad Elstad
Sent: Friday, January 26, 2018 4:48 PM
To: Ian Hamilton <i_h at hotmail.com>
Cc: games_access at lists.igda.org
Subject: Re: [games_access] Unity and screenreaders issue

Ahh. I somehow missed the 'formerly' part in her twitter profile. I was wondering why she was travelling more and teaching master classes. I just thought after the release for Fortnite she had some bandwidth. Lol.

On Jan 26, 2018 6:35 PM, Ian Hamilton <i_h at hotmail.com<mailto:i_h at hotmail.com>> wrote:
Celia has left now unfortunately! She's now an independent.
However her successor  is also very into accessibility too.
From: Chad Elstad
Sent: Saturday, 27 January, 00:24
Subject: Re: [games_access] Unity and screenreaders issue
To: Thomas Westin
Cc: Ian Hamilton, games_access at lists.igda.org<mailto:games_access at lists.igda.org>

HTML5 games with tools like Phaser.js are more accessible than Unity. Though HTML5 benefits from the browsers handling most of it.
So I am torn.
I think you're right though. If something like the Unreal engine went full in on accessibility, they may just capture a lot of Unity developers. With their color blind internal tools, they are at least thinking about it and doing something. Epics UX Director, Celia Hodent, seems on the ball with a lot of this.
On Jan 26, 2018 6:03 PM, Thomas Westin <thomas at westin.nu<mailto:thomas at westin.nu>> wrote:
Yes that is correct, hopefully it is easier today.
If we can just get one of the major engines to implement support, the others may follow…
Unreal implemented colorblind support internally
Valve implemented closed-captioning in Source
So maybe one of those two could be an easier way first, and then nudge Unity by pointing to their competition?
/Thomas
On 27Jan 2018, at 00:45, Ian Hamilton <i_h at hotmail.com<mailto:i_h at hotmail.com>> wrote:
On the plus side they have some proper product management and strategy in place now, such I don't think was really the case in 2009, as far as I remember they were still in rapid growth phase then right?
From: Thomas Westin <thomas at westin.nu<mailto:thomas at westin.nu>>
Sent: Friday, January 26, 2018 10:16:27 PM
To: Ian Hamilton
Cc: games_access at lists.igda.org<mailto:games_access at lists.igda.org>
Subject: Re: [games_access] Unity and screenreaders issue

Yes, I’ve been nagging Unity at several occasions since around 2009 about this. So, maybe it is more than just priorities, I fear that attitudes may also be part of the problem. It it isn’t reasonable that one of the biggest game engines can’t fix this in 9 years. Or maybe I’ve been talking to the wrong people. And yes, CVAA may definitely help.
I will nag Unity and the other engine devs at GDC (again)
Best,
Thomas
On 25Jan 2018, at 11:42, Ian Hamilton <i_h at hotmail.com<mailto:i_h at hotmail.com>> wrote:

They should hire Michelle 😊
But I 100% agree that it needs to be in there at engine level, and enabled by default. Like how it is for developing natively on mobile, where UI element names are automatically exposed and picked up, meaning lots of games that are accidentally blind accessible. Requests from gamers are then more along the lines of "can you give a better label to this button please" rather than "can you make your game blind accessible please".
The barrier really is priorities. I think there are two ways around that barrier;
1. The work, or at least an initial chunk of the work, is done outside of the usual backlogs. E.g. prototype built for hackathon, EA Sports style
2. Enough developers get behind the feature for it to justify taking the place of others on the backlog. In previous years this has been straight up impossible, but CVAA's requirement for blind accessible comms-related UIs may get more people onboard.
Ian
From: games_access <games_access-bounces at lists.igda.org<mailto:games_access-bounces at lists.igda.org>> on behalf of Chad Elstad <chad at smartmarbles.com<mailto:chad at smartmarbles.com>>
Sent: 25 January 2018 00:30
To: games_access at lists.igda.org<mailto:games_access at lists.igda.org>
Subject: [games_access] Unity and screenreaders issue

All -
How can we get any traction with the Unity developers to fix the issue that would allow screenreaders to work with Unity games without a plugin (which more or less just mimics them). My understanding of the issue is that Unity puts a layer above the games UI which prevents screenreaders from natively being able to read the UI elements.
I completely respect and applaud the work Michelle at MetalPopGames has done with the Unity Accessibility Plugin. I am already planning to purchase it now that I'm pushing to make a game that is accessible based on a presentation I made last year.
https://www.glitchcon.mn/project/reducing-player-barriers-with-accessible-design/<https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.glitchcon.mn%2Fproject%2Freducing-player-barriers-with-accessible-design%2F&data=02%7C01%7C%7C70ceddc65c3a460314af08d5650a739c%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636526017912834742&sdata=xBzyw3TYdN%2FGbs7Dofj3oyiCg5Tpc%2BXC6oRbhGNrC%2BM%3D&reserved=0>
This year, I want to walk the walk since last year I talked the talk. ;) Possibly present a how to implement instead of an academic: here's what it is and here are things we should do.
I have posted in the Unity forums a couple of times on this topic, but nothing but crickets.
Making the Unity IDE accessible is a different animal to tackle. But I wanted to acknowledge it as a need from the visuallly impaired community.
Thanks in advance. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
-Chad Elstad
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