Friday 4 July 2008

Power Up: The Game

As referred to in a previous post, some of the IBM folk have developed an accessible game called PowerUp which is described in the following paper,

@inproceedings{1358752,
author = {Shari M. Trewin and Mark R. Laff and Anna Cavender and Vicki L. Hanson},
title = {Accessibility in virtual worlds},
booktitle = {CHI '08: CHI '08 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems},
year = {2008},
isbn = {978-1-60558-012-X},
pages = {2727--2732},
location = {Florence, Italy},
doi = {http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1358628.1358752},
publisher = {ACM},
address = {New York, NY, USA},
abstract = {Virtual worlds present both an opportunity and a challenge to people with disabilities. Standard ways to make such worlds accessible to a broad set of users have yet to emerge, although some core requirements are already clear. This paper describes work in progress towards an accessible 3D multi-player game that includes a set of novel tools for orienting, searching and navigating the world.}
}
My first impressions suggest that it's quite similar to Second Life in some respects (fixed name lists, Orientation Center).

I'd be interested to hear feedback from some blind or VI players.

Thursday 3 July 2008

Other Papers

Although our project's finished I've just coincidentally come across some interesting papers that seem relevant to our work,

Desurvire, H. & Wiberg, C. (2007). Master of the Game: The Crucial Role of Accessibility in Future Game Design. In Wiberg, C & Wiberg, M. (eds.) Proceedings of CMID´07 - The First International Conference on Cross-Media Interaction Design, March 22-25, 2007.


@inproceedings{1358752,
author = {Shari M. Trewin and Mark R. Laff and Anna Cavender and Vicki L. Hanson},
title = {Accessibility in virtual worlds},
booktitle = {CHI '08: CHI '08 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems},
year = {2008},
isbn = {978-1-60558-012-X},
pages = {2727--2732},
location = {Florence, Italy},
doi = {http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1358628.1358752},
publisher = {ACM},
address = {New York, NY, USA},
abstract = {Virtual worlds present both an opportunity and a challenge to people with disabilities. Standard ways to make such worlds accessible to a broad set of users have yet to emerge, although some core requirements are already clear. This paper describes work in progress towards an accessible 3D multi-player game that includes a set of novel tools for orienting, searching and navigating the world.}
}

@inproceedings{354375,
author = {Jochen Schneider and Thomas Strothotte},
title = {Constructive exploration of spatial information by blind users},
booktitle = {Assets '00: Proceedings of the fourth international ACM conference on Assistive technologies},
year = {2000},
isbn = {1-58113-314-8},
pages = {188--192},
location = {Arlington, Virginia, United States},
doi = {http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/354324.354375},
publisher = {ACM},
address = {New York, NY, USA},
}

@inproceedings{274525,
author = {Sandy Ressler and Qiming Wang},
title = {Making VRML accessible for people with disabilities},
booktitle = {Assets '98: Proceedings of the third international ACM conference on Assistive technologies},
year = {1998},
isbn = {1-58113-020-1},
pages = {144--148},
location = {Marina del Rey, California, United States},
doi = {http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/274497.274525},
publisher = {ACM},
address = {New York, NY, USA},
}

@inproceedings{638263,
author = {Chieko Asakawa and Hironobu Takagi and Shuichi Ino and Tohru Ifukube},
title = {Auditory and tactile interfaces for representing the visual effects on the web},
booktitle = {Assets '02: Proceedings of the fifth international ACM conference on Assistive technologies},
year = {2002},
isbn = {1-58113-464-9},
pages = {65--72},
location = {Edinburgh, Scotland},
doi = {http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/638249.638263},
publisher = {ACM},
address = {New York, NY, USA},
}

@inproceedings{1028657,
author = {Andreas Hub and Joachim Diepstraten and Thomas Ertl},
title = {Design and development of an indoor navigation and object identification system for the blind},
booktitle = {Assets '04: Proceedings of the 6th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers and accessibility},
year = {2004},
isbn = {1-58113-911-X},
pages = {147--152},
location = {Atlanta, GA, USA},
doi = {http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1028630.1028657},
publisher = {ACM},
address = {New York, NY, USA},
}

@inproceedings{634213,
author = {Calle Sj\"{o}str\"{o}m},
title = {Using haptics in computer interfaces for blind people},
booktitle = {CHI '01: CHI '01 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems},
year = {2001},
isbn = {1-58113-340-5},
pages = {245--246},
location = {Seattle, Washington},
doi = {http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/634067.634213},
publisher = {ACM},
address = {New York, NY, USA},
}

@inproceedings{1321285,
author = {Mar\'{\i}a J. Ab\'{a}solo and Jos\'{e} Mariano Della},
title = {Magallanes: 3D navigation for everybody},
booktitle = {GRAPHITE '07: Proceedings of the 5th international conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques in Australia and Southeast Asia},
year = {2007},
isbn = {978-1-59593-912-8},
pages = {135--142},
location = {Perth, Australia},
doi = {http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1321261.1321285},
publisher = {ACM},
address = {New York, NY, USA},
}