An Overview of Accessibility and Usability of Educational Games

Aims and Objectives: Learning through Games

A combination of increasing interest in learning through games and advances in Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) have led to the development of a number of computer-based educational games and gaming environments. This trend is likely to continue. There is also increasing recognition of the needs of disabled students and the importance of integrating them into mainstream education, as well as the importance of doing this appropriately and the associated requirement for adequate resources to support this. This makes it imperative to consider the requirements of disabled students (and staff) to ensure their full inclusion while the development and dissemination of educational computer-based games and gaming environments are still at a relatively early stage.

This raises the issues of whether and, if so, how best such approaches can be used to support disabled learners. Thus, it is important to understand the underlying pedagogical assumptions on which the particular course topic or module and the use of educational digital games are based. This will also require consideration of the affect of these pedagogical assumptions on disabled students and whether it will be necessary to modify some or all of them to enable full inclusion of all disabled and non-disabled students. In addition, guidelines will be required to support the development of high quality accessible and usable educational computer-based games. Discussion of the associated resource implications is beyond the scope of this chapter.

Therefore, the overall aim of the chapter is increasing understanding of the conditions to be met for good practice in designing educational gaming environments which are effective, fun to use and fully accessible by disabled (and non-disabled) students. Specific objectives include an introduction to accessibility and usability issues for computer-based games and gaming environments, with a particular focus on the accessibility and usability requirements of disabled people. Other objectives include a presentation and evaluation of the state of the art with regards to the development of educational computer-based games and their usability and accessibility, and the development of guidelines and recommendations to be followed.