Media Accessibility in Video Games

 Earlier this year, I was fortunate enough to host a group of deaf students at my library for a storytime and activity hour. The group was from the special education unit in a nearby school district. Initially, my only involvement in these programs was to set up a meeting room for them, pull some picture books and conduct a tour later. Although we had gone over accessibility issues over email prior to the visit, I initially didn't think there would be many barriers to the students that came to the library. However, the more I interacted with the group, the more I realized that there were barriers to their library experience--and learning experience--that were only obvious once I interacted with them. Each student attending required their own aide, and when requesting materials or asking directions, they often communicated with me through that aide. Without them, my communication with the students would have been strained.

Though I had tried my best to make the library accessible, it still wasn't enough; I only realized later that this is because I brought an able-bodied perspective to the situation. Thankfully, the students and teachers were extremely grateful regardless. The lead teacher even told me that her expectations of the visit were exceeded--this made me proud of the preparation I had done but also made me wonder what kind of accessibility issues the students were facing at other events.

When I heard about Deafverse, a choose-your-own-adventure style game for deaf children, I wanted to look into integrating this into a future visit. Though the game was created for teenagers, after a few minutes exploring the site I could see adapting this for younger children to use as well. The game incorporates sign language elements and is barrier-free for any deaf child playing. I would love to bring this group back to the library and do some sort of interactive program with them playing the game. 

However, this also got me thinking about what other video games are made accessible for children and teenagers. At our library, we have a Nintendo Switch that anyone is free to use while in the building. I wondered how accessible the game console was for a deaf visitor and did some research on accessibility built into the Nintendo Switch. This is what I came up with:

Image source: Katie Steffensen

Compared to the beginning of the video game industry, there have been great strides made to provide equitable access to persons with disabilities. Remote updates to console software make it easy to provide solutions as they arise. For example, Bluetooth connectivity was not available until a few years after release, but was able to be integrated into all systems with an Internet connection by Nintendo via remote updates. Considering the advent of Deafverse as a game without barriers to deaf children, it will be interesting to see how accessibility and video games evolve alongside one another in the future. Will there be games or consoles made in the future specifically for persons with disabilities?