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“inclusive, accessible gaming experience for all”

NextWave Elevator challenge is a 90-minute team game which transports global team to different elevator levels to watch films, play interactive quiz, solving animated puzzles around a 360-degree immersive viewable experience.
The NextWave Elevator (called Levella with her own personality and sense of humor) transports global teams to different environments to play interactive games, watch films, and solve animated puzzles, all built around the strategic pillars of NextWave.
The game has focused on creating awareness about EY’s strategic pillars of NextWave strategy.
The elevator challenge has been rolled out to EY’s 365,000+ global employees.
Shift left accessibility approach was considered for creating an inclusive gaming experience.
Accessibility testing team was roped in early for building accessible gaming product.
Game accessibility requirements has been prioritized based on types of disabilities

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Accessibility Considerations

Accessibility standard – WCAG 2.1 AA
Additional references – Game Accessibility Guidelines, Accessible Player Experiences (APX), Framework for Accessible Specification of Technologies (FAST), Media Accessibility User Requirements (MAUR)
Disability personas – User needs based on disability: vision, hearing, motor, cognitive
Accessible game path - Registering, game play navigation, completing quizzes, watching videos, viewing stats

Tech – Chrome / Edge browsers, Windows laptops, JAWS/NVDA; HTML5, CSS3, React, ARIA; C# .NET, Node.js; PlayFab game server, os game engine
Team facilitator – Leads game play, adjusts game speed, trained on accommodations
Multiple language support – Designed for global internal audience
Assessed accessibility adaptations offered in popular games

Accessibility Standard - The game is built as a browser based desktop mode game play, so web accessibility considerations are considered for developing accessibility conformance.

Multiple language support - The game is launched for internal EY employees across multiple countries, so multi language support should be made available for screen readers.

Baselining the accessibility technology stack - Chrome/ edge browsers running in windows laptops with JAWS as primary screen reader.

Audio/ Video accessibility - All audio/ video components within the game play should be provided with appropriate closed captions, audio descriptions.

Defining minimum accessibility consideration for the game play - A person using keyboard with or without assistive technologies should be able to register the game, navigate the game play screens and complete the challenge without any barriers.

Accessibility Facilitator for each teams – The game play consists of multiple members within each team, so a human facilitator who can guide the team and support the accessibility guidance.

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Concept (Adaptations and Features)

WCAG criteria groupings

Keyboard Access and Visual Focus
Page Title and Language
Headings
Images
Contrast, Color, Appearance
Resizing, Magnification, Responsiveness
Links, Buttons, Controls, Navigation, Skip Link
Forms, Labels, Errors
Tables and Lists
Multimedia (Audio and Video), Animation, Moving content
Structure, Meaning, Reading Order, Global Code

Adaptations

Settings - Closed captions, audio descriptions, microphone hints
Universal Design - Adequate text size, easy to read fonts, simple layout
Tutorial - Game play, navigation, settings, controls, and levels
Parsing user interface output to assistive technologies
Browser zoom support
Keyboard access control

General adaptations

Adaptations at general level which are separate from game and game engine

Parsing user interface output to assistive technologies – Screen readers are able to get the state/ properties and notification changes of the components
Browser zoom support for game play screens
Keyboard access control for all interactive components across screens

Game specific Adaptations

Adaptations which are implemented at game level using various methods

Accessibility settings at game play level - Settings for audio/ video closed captions, audio descriptions, microphone hints
Universal Design - Defined adequate default text size, accessible friendly fonts, simple layout
Tutorial - Detailed game tutorial has been created with guidance on how to play, controls used and game levels navigation

Further reading : https://www.w3.org/2018/12/games-workshop/papers/web-games-adaptive-accessibility.html

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Design

Collaborative design sessions – UX design, accessibility, learning, business
Game Navigation Path - Simple interaction paths and consistent layouts
Persona-based scenarios – Walk through the design concept based on disability usage
Low fidelity / High fidelity prototypes - Validated for visual accessibility and evaluated for disability usage scenarios

Captions – Closed captioning reqs defined with ability to customize font size, color, location
Audio Descriptions – Audio description approach defined; strategy to interweave with regular audio track
Advanced Audio – Ability to control audio components
Images – Meaningful vs. decorative image definition; and Alt text content generation
Color usage - Color pallets, text contrasts, color schema
Interactive states - Distinct and visible focus indicators and interactive states

Collaboration sessions with accessibility SME’s and design team – The sessions to identify the design level accessibility requirements and implement uniformly across the game play screens.
Accessible Color pallets - All the game play screens has been designed with accessible color pallets which were finalized in consultation with accessibility SME’s.
Accessible Focus States - As part of accessible focus states ensured that all UI elements should display highly visible focus indicator on every game play screens.
Game Navigation Path - Navigation path for games were baselined for consistent layout and simple interaction paths.
Low fidelity /High Fidelity design accessibility - Game screen designs has been validated for visual accessibility considerations with accessibility SME’s which helped in inclusive game screens.
Images - Images across the game play screens were tagged as meaningful/ decorative images during design phase. Accessible image ALT text was defined and documented for the developers to refer during development.
Audio/ Video - Videos which are part of the game play experiences has been validated with the content designers to ensure embedded captions and audio descriptions are accurate which are being added to the respective videos.

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Game Settings

Closed captions
Audio descriptions
Microphone hints
Advanced audio effects
Multi-language support

English
French
Spanish
Portuguese
German
Italian
Chinese
Japanese
Korean
Bahasa
Turkish

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Development

Embedding – Accessibility resource embedded with sprint team and providing direction for accessibility-driven dev process
Trainings to Developers – Accessibility guidance and screen level requirements
HTML - Usage of standard HTML components during screen development
ARIA - Properties to define live regions, roles/properties for widgets, roles for page structure, keyboard navigation

Semi automated scans – Usage of semi automated accessibility scanners during screen level testing
Accessibility Checklist - Unit testing checklist for development team
Accessibility acceptance criteria added to user stories

Guided the development team on accessibility driven game development for following the accessibility best practices and inclusive development of game play screens.

Standard HTML components – Standard HTML was used extensively across the game play screens which helped in conformance to accessibility
ARIA Live Regions - For ensuring accessibility attributes properly passed to assistive technologies for the dynamic page changes ‘ARIA Live regions’ were leveraged. This helped in announcing the answer selection and the quiz results
Semi automated scans - Usage of semi automated accessibility scanners (Ex: Accessibility Insights for Web) as part of screen level testing during development
Accessibility Checklist - The developers were given guidance on the game accessibility checkpoints which needs to be validated as part of unit testing of game play screens by accessibility SME’s.

Jibin 03/07

Accessibility Acceptance Criteria – The acceptance criteria was added in user stories which enabled the developers to build the game screens and interactions according to accessibility guidelines

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Testing

Iterative sprint-based testing based on enhanced Trusted Tester Methodology
Keyboard-only testing, screen reader check, code review, tool-assisted scans
Screen reader - Context change, Change in UI focus, Dynamic screen changes, Notifications, Interactive game play elements

Disability persona-based testing
Accessibility defect reporting and tracking - Ability to filter sort based on multiple criteria – WCAG Level, disability-type, blocking
Prioritization and remediation - Keyboard accessibility, screen reader performance, captions, and audio descriptions prioritized

Game accessibility testing checklist - Accessibility testing for the game play screens has been carried out based on the testing checklist which emphasises on accessible game play navigation using keyboard with assistive technologies.
Accessibility testing of game screens - Accessibility SME has tested the game play experience with keyboard only, keyboard with screen reader modes to validate the accessibility conformance of the screens.
Assistive technology testing - For the screen narration using screen readers following key scenarios where identified (Context change, Change in UI focus, Dynamic screen changes, Notifications, Interactive game play elements). Screen reader output has been captured and shared across development team for faster resolution of the issues.
Prioritizing accessibility defects - Accessibility defects has been grouped based on the barriers faced by people with disabilities. Highest priority was given to keyboard access and screen reader narrations across all the interactive elements form game registration till game finish stage.

-Jibin 03/07-

Accessibility testing Cycle – Accessibility testing was carried out in each sprint in an embedded testing model where screen level features were tested. EY accessibility SME was embedded for a period of 6 months and was collaborating closely with the game developers for guidance to remediate the accessibility barriers.

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Release

Awards

Won Best Campaign at the Simply Digital Internal Communication Awards by Simplys
Won Chair Award at the Drum Awards for Experience by The Drum
Shortlisted for B2B category award by Digital Marketing Association (DMA)

Rollout

Rolled out globally to 150+ countries, available to 365,000+ people
Played by 70,000 participants till date
Social engagement - photos, prizes, competition, team building
Positive qualitative feedback, three key metrics tracking at 4.3/5

Rollout

NextWave Elevator – NextWave Elevator – The game was rolled out globally across EY in phased manner by mid of 2022 and was completely launched in all regions by 2023
Number of Participants - EY NextWave Elevator game has been played by 70,000 participants across EY and three key feedback questions tracks at an average of 4.3/5
NextWave Yammer campaign – NextWave elevator campaign generated hundreds of wonderful team photos from around the world in EY yammer network with highly positive social interactions of game play

Awards

Won Best Campaign at the Simply Digital IC Awards
Won Chair Award at the Drum awards for Experience 2022
Shortlisted for DMA Award in the B2B category

More reading : https://www.thedrum.com/news/2022/12/06/how-ey-got-35000-employees-engage-its-nextwave-training-initiative

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Takeaways

What worked well

Embedding accessibility resource
Participatory design
Disability personas and usage scenarios
Best practice adoption (design / dev / test)
Facilitator role
Matching tech stack for assistive tech performance

What can be improved / done differently

Embrace Shift-Left
Dynamic graphic changes and ARIA Live announcements challenges
Co-creation - Including people with disabilities throughout the process
Beyond accessibility – be truly inclusive

Inclusive design principles applied for game play screens – This approach resulted in significant accessibility compliance for screens in color contrast, consistent UI navigation and resulted in fewer accessibility issues during game play testing
Accessibility of game components with native elements – Usage of native elements helped in complete assistive technology support for the accessibility attributes which resulted in significant screen reader support in the game play screens
Dynamic change in graphics during game play screens – Need to improve accessibility conformance as the change in game play screen change graphics happens quickly which is not captured by screen reader
ARIA Live announcements and previous state change narrations – There are few moments in game play where the ARIA live announcements (change in score) are overlapping with the user quiz responses (screen reader narration) which was previous action output