The Role of Audio in Two Accessible Vision-Rehabilitation Games for Blind Teenage Users

Background

Most computer games have a strong visual component. While the majority of these games also use audio, most (relevant) information is provided through images. This way, it is very difficult for low vision users, and impossible for blind users, to play the games independently. This is also true for serious computer games for education and health, which are usually designed for sighted users. Nonetheless, it would be desirable that these games would be accessible to visually impaired users, allowing these users to take advantage of these applications in the same way that sighted users do.

In order to allow visually impaired users to enjoy and take advantage of computer games, these must use non-visual modalities as means of interaction with the user. Some possibilities include using sound, touch screens, haptic equipment, and specially designed hardware. For example, the TIM project used a specially designed keyboard and a scripting language to adapt existing educational games for visually impaired children (Archambault & Burger, 2000).