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Alison Long

Director of Consumer and Business Services, RNIB

John Paton

Media, Culture and Immersive technologies manager, RNIB

Building a roadmap for accessible gaming

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We’re the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), one of the UK’s leading sight loss charities and the largest community of blind and partially sighted people.
We recognise everyone’s unique experience of sight loss and offer help and support for blind and partially sighted people.
We’re a catalyst for change – inspiring people with sight loss to transform their own experience, their community and, ultimately, society. Our focus is on giving them the help, support and tools they need to realise their aspirations.

About RNIB

We’re the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), one of the UK’s leading sight loss charities and the largest community of blind and partially sighted people.

We recognise everyone’s unique experience of sight loss and offer help and support for blind and partially sighted people.

We’re a catalyst for change – inspiring people with sight loss to transform their own experience, their community and, ultimately, society. Our focus is on giving them the help, support and tools they need to realise their aspirations.

- 30,000 members

- 7000 volunteers

- Offices dotted across the UK,

- Like any other national Charity, we work across a number of different areas including education, reading services, employment, finance, transport and have leading experts working on specialist formats for example Braille, tactile and (Haptics).

- Small team working on entertainment – media and culture – broadcast, film, theatre, museums, and now video games. Work on advocacy, policy, collaborate with the industry on viewer experience and research studies to understand benefits of next generation access services.

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RNIB Accessible Gaming report 2022

Working with Moray House School of Education, University of Edinburgh and i2 media research, Goldsmiths, University of London
User research

Quantitative Research, large scale survey of 500+ respondents
Follow-up Qualitative Research

Industry Consultation

tinyurl.com/RNIB-AGR2022

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Important messages

User outcomes

Less than 10% felt games were accessible
Still motivated to play
95% felt negatively towards developers who didn’t consider accessibility

Industry outcomes

Strong desire to make games accessible
Lack of knowledge about how to do so

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6 areas of improvement

Identified 6 areas of improvement

Participatory design
Knowledge sharing
Motivations and mandates
Infrastructure challenges
Interface challenges
Future research areas

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Accessible Gaming Symposium

Hybrid event partnering with Abertay University
Two days with:

presentations
panel sessions
networking time

Breakout workshops themed on the 6 areas
Big names in attendance

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Expanding RNIB’s accessibility consultancy

New post to work on accessible gaming
RNIB’s gaming community networks
Recruiting gamers into pool of user testers

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Working with the games industry

Industry is motivated to change
Similar to approach used with UK broadcasters
Help industry achieve their goals
Collaborative beats combative
Links from symposium

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Further research

Further research from both gaming report and Symposium
RNIB will collaborate with

Universities
Research organisations
Games industry

Research leads are open to all

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Work in progress

Accessible gaming report
Gaming symposium
Expanding RNIB’s accessibility consultancy
Working with games industry
Further research
Design For Every Gamer

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Spatial audio: 3D sound through 2 channels

Human ears can pinpoint where sounds are coming from in space

Interaural time difference
Interaural level difference
Head Related Transfer Function (Ear crinkles)

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Interaural time difference

Sound arrives at the nearer ear quicker

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Interaural level difference�

Sound louder in nearer ear
Head blocks sound to other ear

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Head Related Transfer Function (Ear crinkles)�

Sound bounces of crinkles in the ear
Sound position encoded by echoes and attenuations
Especially important for �elevation

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Issues with binaural encoding

HRTF is dependent on earshape
Ears as unique as fingerprints

Listeners can learn to use profile HRTFs

Need to know where the head is pointed

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Eyegaze and spatial audio

Turning to face a sound gives more precise sound location
Sighted viewers will be watching the screen
Virtual barbershop

Why are there few other examples?

We have a natural tendency to turn to face a sound. This gives more precise sound location. In the same way that turning to look at something means you have both eyes focus on it, turning to face something means you can make use of both ears. This gives more precise sound location.

Why is this important? We know where sighted viewers will be facing because they're likely to be watching the screen so the head is going to be facing forwards.

There's a brilliant example of spatial audio called Virtual Barber Shop which you can look up on YouTube. It's audio only. There's absolutely no video. You hear doors opening off to one side. You hear someone playing guitar off the other side. At one point they put a bag over your head and it almost feels suffocating. It stands alone, however, when the technology they used, which was a dummy head, has been around for ages and I wondered why this would be. Why would there be few other examples? I suspect the reason is that the one thing that you're trained not to do when you're sitting in a Barber shop chair is turn your head. So when you hear someone playing the guitar off to one side, you don't turn to look at them. When you hear the door opening, you don't turn to look. Without that learned prohibition you might turn your head and lose immersivity.

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Spatial audio works for sighted people

Sighted people

Secondary information channel
No head tracking needed

Blind people

Single information channel
Greater accuracy needed for HRTFs
Natural to turn head

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Will the market provide for blind users?

Personalised HRTFs uncommon

Specialist setup
AI based attempts

Head tracking not common

Apple Airpods pro, Sony Linkbuds, Huawei FreeBuds Pro 2
Premium price
Reviews rarely focus on head tracking

So will the market provide for blind gamers? Personalised Hrtfs are uncommon. They either require a specialist set up of speakers all around you or there are some AI based attempts that look at the shape of your ear and try and work out what your HRTF would be. One of the things I'm interested in is how accurately those AI based attempts will find your HRTF. Also in headphones and Earbuds head tracking is not common. There are a few out there. Apple Airpods Pro famously have it in, Sony link Buds, which are a unique product with both head tracking and audio pass through. And Huawei have announced that their Freebuds Pro 2 will have headtracking in as well. These all come with premium price though. The head tracking feature does add a bit to the price. One of the interesting things about looking at reviews on headphones and ear buds with head tracking it is that the head tracking is very rarely mentioned. If we assume that technology reviewers know their audience, then this suggests that the audience is not. Interest in head tracking is not something that's on the average person's radar.

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Will the market provide?

Setup works for mainstream

Standard HRTF and no head tracking

Extra features incur costs

Will the market support gimmicks?

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Way forward

Research needed

How much does turning the head break immersion?
How much difference does a personalised HRTF make
Evaluation of AI generated HRTFs

Cheerleading needed

Audio games,
benefits of good NGA,
diverging from screen first

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Questions

RNIB’s gaming mailbox

gaming@rnib.org.uk

RNIB’s Accessible Gaming report

https://tinyurl.com/RNIB-AGR2022

Recordings from RNIB’s Accessible Gaming Symposium

https://tinyurl.com/RNIB-AGS2022