KerryJ’s blog

This started off as an email to a lady I met through my experiments in Reaction Grid. I’ve been reading up on accessiblity in virtual worlds for Education.au’s Immersive Learning Unit, so had several resources I wanted to share with her. As the email developed over the space of an hour or two, I decided it would be more efficient to post it as a blog post. So here ’tis…”

Games developed specifically for certain types of disabilities have been around for years - http://www.7128.com/But with the immense popularity and serious applications of MMO (Massively Muliplater Online) games and virtual worlds - organisations and governments are looking at ways to overcome online segragation between the differently abled.

America’s National Science Foundation – making Second Life and World of Warcraft more accessible

In 2007, the NSF set up a grant for programmers to develop an accessible client for Second Life While the NSF acknowledged there were certain ethical considerations in focusing on a commercial gaming program, the decision makers decided that the opportunity to "improve the quality of life for millions of overrode those concerns".

It is hoped the technology developed in the project can be leveraged to other MMOs such as World of Warcraft.

The Principle Investigator Eelke Folmer of the University of Nevada, Reno, has produced TextSL, a Second Life client that allows sight-impaired users to access Second Life using the JAWS screen reader and the .Net framework. http://textsl.org/

Guidelines for in-built accessibility?

In a 2008 research paper to the Conference on Human Factors in Computing systems, researchers from IBM’s Watson Research Center point out that virtual worlds and games could and should take disabilities into consideration and suggests the need to develop a set of guidelines to build accessibility into the graphical user interface. These design guidelines include:
“customizable font size for all text in GUIs; high contrast and low contrast text options; keyboard navigation of all GUIs with speech and visual feedback; self-voicing capability for heads-up displays; keyboard-only and point-and-click-only modes of in-world navigation; the ability to remap controls; the ability to adjust control sensitivity and time-sensitive parameters; on-screen display of sounds and captions for spoken information; a user interface for personalization of these features; and training and help.”

Within the gameplay or world itself – they put forth arguments that tagging and labelling of objects would help those with visual impairments use screen readers to help them navigate and find objects.
IBM’s Research Center” game Powerup illustrates the application of these guidelines http://www.powerupthegame.com/downloadaccess.html

IBM’s Advanced Technology team of the IBM Human Ability and Accessibility Center has also produced an experimental software program that works with the Second Life platform (but their goal is to produce one that would work across platforms so that blind people would have one interface for multiple worlds): http://services.alphaworks.ibm.com/virtualworlds/

Vastpark’s IMML

IMML (Immersive Media Markup Language) is a markup language developed by virtual world development company Vastpark designed to describe virtual worlds and other forms of multimedia experiences in a human readable XML format. In a 2008 forum post response to a question regarding the accessibility of Vastpark’s tools, a Vastpark representatives stated “IMML is pure XML, with all content sourced via a secondary standard known as MetaWSS which is also XML. MetaWSS provides a way for content publishers to associate metadata with content, including a description, audience and content tags, etc. So whilst our current end-user applications aren’t really designed with accessibility in mind (again, standards and tech first), the data is available to make that happen without too much difficulty.

User-created solutions:

Good boy Max!

Max the virtual guide dog is helping to open the virtual world of Second Life to the blind.

Max started off as a prop used by Jolie Mason, director of the Los Angeles Radio Reading Service.

A chance meeting with a programmer led to a radar program being installed inside the dog.

How does this work?

Users type in commands and the device will read out what is in the vicinity from the four categories of items in Second Life: the closest avatar, moving object, stationary object and/or scripted object.

It can also help users find a specific object or avatar and transport them to it. Users can also use Max (or a virtual cane) to follow an avatar, take a pre-set tour and interact with scripted objects. http://www.virtualguidedog.com/pages/trainingsite.html

For those who don’t wish to make their sight impairment public, the Max project provides other tools that operate the same way.

Virtual Ability Island

Virtual Ability Island was developed for people with disabilities or chronic illnesses by Virtual Ability Incorporated through a partnership with the Alliance Library system.  The island was created to give new residents an accessibility-friendly place to learn Second Life® fundamentals and to provide existing residents with ongoing training and information about health-related issues and support groups. 

Through the new account sign-up process on our web site, or through the secondlife.com Community Gateway program, newly created avatars arrive at the beginning of the New Resident Orientation Course on Virtual Ability Island when they log in to Second Life® for the first time, rather than at one of the Linden Lab induction islands. I encourage you to visit the Virtual Ability site to read and listen to the views of Second Life users with physical and mental challenges on what virtual worlds mean to them.

Simon Steven’s Wheelies

Simon Stevens is a UK-based independent disability consultant and trainer with expertise including disability equality, independent living, social care, lifestyle advocacy and secondlife. He has worked with the BBC, eBay, the Council of Europe, Warwick University and many other organisations. His Wheelies on the Water nightclub serves as a social hub for differently abled people.

I’ve got Dave Wallace of Life Kludger to thank for opening my eyes up to the notion that people who are differently abled don’t always want to leave their wheelchairs behind in virtual spaces. Dave has several avatars, at least one that I’m aware of, is in a wheelchair. On Wheelies, there were several models of wheelchairs available for purchase, one with a saucy lap ride animation. I endeavour to make my avatars look as much like me as possible — Rubenesque, glasses, short hair — because it helps me feel immersed in the environment and to connect to my avatar. So it makes sense to me that if someone is in a wheelchair in their RL, they will feel more of a sense of authentic identiy if they have one in virtual environments.

Simon is making waves in Second Life concerning wheelchair accessibility in-world for just this reason. To quote " The use of a wheelchair within secondlife can be seen as culturally significent and the request for secondlife architecture to reflect the same rules of accessibility as in the real world is one of cultural relevant and acceptence."