Implementing accessibility in educational videogames with

• Authors: Javier Torrente;Ángel del Blanco;Pablo Moreno-Ger;Iván Martínez-Ortiz;Baltasar Fernández-Manjón
• Venue: MTDL '09 Proceedings of the first ACM international workshop on Multimedia technologies for distance learning
• Year: 2009

Web-based distance education (often identified as e-learning) is being reinvented to include richer content, with multimedia and interactive experiences that engage the students, thus increasing their motivation. However, the richer the content, the more difficult it becomes to maintain accessibility for people with special needs. Multimedia contents in general and educational games in particular present accessibility challenges that must be addressed to maintain e-learning inclusivity. Usually the accessibility of multimedia content in courses is addressed with the definition of simpler but more accessible content that diminishes the benefits of the richer content. Hence we need new, accessible multimedia technologies that guarantee that the learning experience is motivating and engaging to all students. We will focus our work on educational games, trying to leverage their engaging narratives to produce educational experiences that are attractive to all students, including people with special needs. Nonetheless the development of accessible games is a major challenge, due mostly to the additional development cost it involves. In this paper we present how the game platform facilitates the development of educational videogames for e-learning, simplifying the introduction of accessibility from the design stage of the game development process.