Keywords

1 Introduction

We live in a time of exceptional media consumption. Movies can be carried with you as you travel, digital music is ubiquitous, and video games are everywhere. As consumer access to both high-bandwidth connections and more powerful devices increase, so too do the opportunities for more intense and interactive video game play. This is especially true of those games that exist within virtual worlds. Virtual worlds based upon the technologies created for these games are being used or considered in a wide variety of non-entertainment fields such as medicine and education. If these non-entertainment uses are to be effective they must take into consideration the needs of all potential users, including and especially users with a wide range of disabilities that may limit or completely preclude their participation in these uses.

Accessibility, however, is not often mentioned when discussing video games, even among groups for whom accessibility is a priority. When we speak about games, and especially video games, we usually do so from the privileged point of view of an able-bodied gamer. Many marginalized gamers do not speak up to bring attention to their challenges for fear of stigmatization. Groups such as The Ablegamers Foundation [1] are beginning to bring voice to these concerns, though, and have seen results from their efforts as game console makers begin to rethink their offerings to include the needs of those with disabilities.

Games are designed from this privileged point of view not out of malice but because often the game designer is an able-bodied person. Accessibility, with some exceptions, simply isn’t part of the design conversation because it isn’t part of the designer’s experience. The lack of attention to players with disabilities is so prevalent it has even been lampooned by cartoonists [2]. Despite this, there are video game players with a wide assortment of disabilities who both identify themselves as gamers and play games in a way comparable to the able-bodied. One example of where this is possible is the computer game World of Warcraft (or simply WoW), first published by Blizzard Entertainment in 2004. It is without question economically successful and culturally impactful. It has also been played by those who are completely blind, a counterintuitive outcome for a visually-based medium.

The now-defunct website WoW Insider featured a number of World of Warcraft players with disabilities over the years in their “15 min of Fame” series [3]. Their stories covered “Shorty,” the player behind the website Ability Powered Gaming [4] where accessibility within the game is explored through her experience with it; Hexu and Davidian, a completely-blind player and his “guide dog guild-mate” assisting him through the game world and its events [5]; and Kephas [6], a player with very limited vision who put together a YouTube video [7] that explains how he reconfigures his UI to make it more useful to him. This accessibility was not directly created by the programmers. It was achieved by the use of add-ons.

Add-ons in World of Warcraft are user-created application modifications that allow configurable access to the core mechanics of the game user interface (UI) and therefore have a direct and meaningful impact on play. Add-ons allow the player to manipulate the game UI in specific ways not otherwise possible through the game client. Textures and colors of UI elements can be substituted for those easier to see; font sizes can be adjusted larger or smaller; even the built-in UI elements can be rearranged on the screen. Visual effects can be translated into aural or textual cues and vice-versa. Planning and note-keeping can be augmented within the game for those who may want or need that type of assistance.

There is a large and well-established add-on developer community and a deep pool of available add-ons built up over World of Warcraft’s history. They can be written by the player or downloaded from sites for other player-created add-ons, like the add-on CT Mod [8], or from sites that host lots of different add-ons, like Curse.com or WowInterface.com. Most notably, these add-ons were not created specifically for accessibility. They were created by otherwise able-bodied players in order to enhance their own game play. It is this open approach to UI configurability that offers insight into how future virtual worlds and their interfaces can be made more accessible. However, there is also a need for tools with which to evaluate the accessibility of UIs.

2 Understanding the Game

World of Warcraft has a sustained worldwide user base in the millions. Constant additions to the game world continue to evolve the fantasy narrative within which the game takes place as well as the technological underpinnings of the game. These additions come in “patches,” what one might compare to a chapter in a book, and “expansions,” comparable to the next novel in a series. Patches can contain either episodic advances to the game world narrative (“content patches”) or relatively minor tweaks to game play (including bug fixes). Expansions, on the other hand, make more sweeping changes. New races and worlds are introduced in expansions, and each expansion is considered to have its own story arc. Similarly, game mechanic changes can be substantial, with complete overhauls to the system that may significantly change game play. There have been 6 expansions since its release with the sixth, titled “Legion”, released in late 2016 [9].

Blizzard Entertainment charges a monthly fee to play World of Warcraft and the user base continues to pay to play the game with the expectation that it continues to expand and evolve during their subscription. The publisher must maintain a high level of player interest in the game to stay profitable. A product life of over 11 years therefore represents a significant sustained interest by a committed player base and by a publisher willing to invest significant resources into its maintenance. World of Warcraft is also designed with the expectation that the player will interact with other players. Its extended lifespan represents a user population well-versed with the physical and narrative environment of the game and a mature technology base upon which those users have built their online identities and play styles.

Salen and Zimmerman [10] offer a three-part framework of schemas for understanding games: rules, play, and culture. Rules include the actual rules of the game, the objectives and how to achieve them, but it also the user interface, the human-computer connection rules that allow interactivity with the game space. Cheating or hacking the game system aside, one cannot play the game except through the interface and it is through the options available in the interface that we come to understand the rules of the game. I cannot make my avatar run, sit, or perform any other action the “rules” allow except through the interface. This means that the way a player interacts with the user interface frames how they interact with the world. For instance, a user with a mobility-limiting condition may have trouble using a keyboard and mouse, severely limiting their interactions within a virtual world, while someone with a visual disability may not be able to interact meaningfully with most elements of the virtual environment at all.

The interface also relays information about the world to the player, again within the rules of the game. If my virtual warrior attacks a virtual monster the interface will usually tell me not only how I can attack but the results of that attack. How much “life” do I have left? How much does the monster? When I use a sword how much damage do I do compared to when I use a mace? The rules are typically performed for the player within the interface on-screen either through textual representation (85% health; 600 hit points left) or through graphical representations (a bar graph, for instance). The default method of this representation is chosen by the game designer. The interface elements are usually consistent with the artistic direction and aesthetic of the game. Those designer choices can constrain the experience of the player in purposeful or unexpected ways. A game designer can chose difficult-to-understand elements for the user interface to intentionally make the game harder, or they can make elements smaller or larger to aid or hinder comprehension.

The interface for World of Warcraft allows users access to the raw data used by the default interface, however, through external add-ons. One may use these add-ons to reimagine the entire user interface but not the representations of elements within the game world. For example, I can change the way information is presented to me (a bar graph for avatar health instead of a textual representation) but not how other objects in the world appear (such as changing what a monster looks like). These add-ons also only change my user interface, not the interface for other players. Why would a player with a disability go through the trouble to do such a thing? Jenkins [11] makes a simple observation that helps to explain why: they’re fans of the game. Put simply, for the player with a disability frustration with the game interface does not outweigh their attraction to the game. “Fandom, after all, is born of a balance between fascination and frustration: if media content didn’t fascinate us, there would be no desire to engage with it; but if it didn’t frustrate us on some level, there would be no drive to rewrite or remake it [12]”.

By “rewriting” the interface players become active and expressive participants in the communication around and within the game. It returns agency to the player and allows for a remaking of meaning for the individual within the system of rules. “This is now my game,” the player might say, “because I have had a hand in creating it, game designers be damned. I will play my way, together with my friends.”

Rather than being focused on the formal qualities of the game object itself the second schema, play, are experiential schemas, directly focused on the actual experience of the game players [13]. Play schemas cover the space between the game and the player and help to explain how the rules can impact the experience of the player. Play isn’t possible without access to the game.

Despite the potential for increased access through add-ons there is also the possibility of abuse that can take away from the play experience of other users. At various points throughout the game’s history some add-ons have made it possible to completely automate play through what are called “bots”. Bots (short for robots) are scripts or other such software that automate some action of the computer of the player. While this may sound like a boon, especially a player with a disability, it negatively impacted the virtual economy of the game, the experience of other players, and was contrary to the goals of the designers. The company has successfully fought legal battles against this type of use within their environment.

The third schema, culture, reminds us that games are played within a greater social context and embody a rhetoric. “Applied to games, the organizing principle of cultural rhetoric reveals how games represent broad patterns of ideological value. The design of a game, in other words, is a representation of ideas and values of a particular time and place [13].” These values are also reflections of the people who create the game. Blizzard games have long had color-blind options in the player settings and the controls for most of their games can be remapped to different keys on the keyboard. This minimal level of accessibility is, of course, good business sense for a company that sells video games. Even so, that ideal and value of access to as many people as possible is reflected in the reality of the add-on ecosystem created around World of Warcraft.

World of Warcraft is a game played with other people. As such the player’s representation of themselves within the world can be an important aspect of their participation within the culture of the game. How a player feels about themselves as a player, their social self, can impact who and how they interact with in the game world. “The social self is the set of ideas individuals have about themselves, which are derived from communication with other people. An important part of the social self is our impression of how other people view us. Since we cannot see into others’ minds directly, we learn about their picture of us by observing how they respond to us [14].” Within a virtual game world this could include managing our performance within the game. The more “successful” a player is within the game, whether success is measured in the “level” of the player’s character or some other in-world attribute, the more positively other players see them. Where interaction with other players is essential to successful “play” it is imperative that the player operate or be seen to operate at the highest level of skill.

The suggestion here, then, is that mastery of the user interface and a background knowledge of how the game works is required for full participation in the game. Tronstad [15] identifies those situations where flow may occur in World of Warcraft as within “instances” (dungeons) or “raids”, situations where the pace and intensity of the encounter are high and mastery of the player’s character’s skills is essential to the successful completion of the goal (usually the defeat of a monster). The game designers have created these encounters specifically with coordinated groups in mind. These situations are also highly social in that they require multiple players to complete – instances require 5 players and raids as many as 25 – and usually require the close coordination of effort among players. Tronstad therefore argues that there is a difference between a player’s character’s “capacity” and “appearance”.

Capacity is the sum of capabilities available for the character, while appearance designates its representational qualities [16]. Capacity refers to the skills and power of the avatar – their class (mage, warrior, druid, etc.), their level (the higher their level the more powerful their abilities), and their gear or equipment. Higher level gear improves abilities in potentially significant ways. A player increases her character level by defeating enemies, completing quests, and other in-game activities. She acquires better gear by defeating more powerful enemies or other, more onerous objectives such as complicated quests or multi-day events. Some game content is gated to only be available to characters of a particular level or higher. Capacity is then a significant factor in determining the experiences available to the player within the game and other players’ perception of that character.

Appearance is the representational qualities of the character and helps to create perception. A character “appears” powerful because of level, gear, etc. and through the character’s appearance the player is perceived as powerful or skilled as well. More powerful and more skilled players are more often invited to participate in group content. Therefore, achieving higher levels or acquiring rare or powerful gear isn’t just done for the enjoyment of the player, but also to signal a specific identity to other players, that of a competent player. For players with a disability, managing this appearance may be crucial to their ability to experience end-game content since some players may see those with a disability as being less-skilled and therefore less desirable in a group.

What is required from the player in order to increase their capacity? A deep understanding of the meanings and mechanics of the world and its rules. To the uninitiated, there is information in the video game image that is at least somewhat recognizable and understandable, such as text or the representation of floors and walls. To the uninitiated, though, many other elements may be difficult to parse, such as the meanings of the icons or the purpose other visual cues. This says nothing of understanding the narrative environment within which the encounter takes place. In describing how new viewers of avant-garde cinema become experienced, Peterson proposes that viewers become knowledgeable by acquiring “both procedural knowledge, what we might call knowing how, and declarative knowledge, what we might call knowing that [17]”. Procedural knowledge encompasses the heuristics of problem solving, information that enables a particular type of strategy of analysis (the how) by the viewer. Declarative knowledge might be said to be the system of codes used to transmit information within the image, the underlying semiotic conceptual (signified) information necessary to understand the signifiers.

For video games and World of Warcraft in particular, this would be the understanding of the basic mechanics and expectations of the game – that some symbols represent player health or power, that some visual effects represent the activation of certain abilities by the player or the monster, or that clicking an icon on the screen activates a certain ability. Through add-ons what is textual information can be translated into graphical or even aural signs and vice-versa. It’s even possible to create haptic feedback cues instead of aural or visual. In this environment, the message/ meaning/ signified remains the same but the sign changes based on the choices of the player. For a player with a condition that precludes the ability to perceive or process one of these “prepackaged” signs, then, add-ons allow them to construct an UI that may be confusing or completely nonsensical to someone else. The flexibility of the World of Warcraft add-on system allows for an interactive environment that only makes sense to that one player – the democratization of communication within the video game system.

3 Making It Accessible

As mentioned earlier some players with disabilities use add-ons to make the user interface more accessible. That suggests there are elements of universal design in these add-ons. Previous research had demonstrated that is indeed the case [18]. This is best understood through the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) [19]. UDL is a set of principles for curriculum development that are intended to give all individuals equal opportunities to learn from educational materials. UDL “provides a blueprint for creating instructional goals, methods, materials, and assessments that work for everyone–not a single, one-size-fits-all solution but rather flexible approaches that can be customized and adjusted for individual needs [19] ” and is divided into 3 Principles:

  1. 1.

    Provide Multiple Means of Representation

  2. 2.

    Provide Multiple Means of Action and Expression

  3. 3.

    Provide Multiple Means of Engagement

The first principle recognizes that people differ in the way that they perceive the world and comprehend information. Where one person may easily make sense of textual data, another may make better sense of the same information in a chart or graph. The second principle recognizes that people differ in the way that they engage with the world around them. For our purposes we can take this to mean the manner in which players interact with the virtual world. An example would be remapping the input commands for specialized devices, or allowing communication via voice instead of through the internal text chat system. The third principle deals with sustaining effort, persistence, and self-regulation. This principle is more difficult to associate with add-and video games since it is the individual user who determines what will maintain persistence. It is assumed that all add-ons at least partially fall into this category since, by definition, the add-on is meant to customize the user interface in such a way as to make the interactions more enjoyable. Each principle is further divided into three subcategories and each subcategory has several “checkpoints” of design.

Using these checkpoints a matrix can be created that allows for the identification of each of these principles within an add-on [20]. Figure 1 demonstrates how this works. A group of most-popular World of Warcraft add-ons was selected from the website Curse.com. The checkpoint number of each principle is noted on the top line of the matrix. The intersection is checked if analysis of the add-on confirms behavior in line with the design checkpoint. Since these principles were created for use in an educational setting not every subgroup will be a comfortable match with the purpose of any given add-on. These criteria are therefore read liberally. A “UDL score” can be created by totaling the number of design criteria an add-on addresses. This score allows us to rank add-ons by accessibility, which was done for Fig. 1.

Fig. 1.
figure 1

UDL scores of top add-ons from Curse.com

Full size image

As the figure shows, most of the add-ons evaluated meet the design criteria of a majority of UDL principles. When World of Warcraft players with disabilities who use add-ons are asked why they use them, their answers are consistent with the needs addressed by UDL [21]. Most strikingly, UDL principles emerged naturally out of user-generated content. None of the add-on creators indicate they are UDL experts and none of the descriptions for the add-ons reference accessibility. This is extraordinary because these are user-created applications created by video game players to enhance their own gameplay. These were not created by user interface researchers, accessibility technologists, or the video game publisher or programmers. However, the end result was a system of tools that allowed for a video game to be accessible to the extent that completely blind players are able to participate at the highest levels of group interaction.

4 Conclusions and Lessons

First, and perhaps most importantly for game and virtual world designers, it is possible for people with many different ability levels and challenges to engage with, find meaning within, and enjoy virtual worlds. It’s important to note in the World of Warcraft example that accessibility can be achieved without negatively impacting the experience of other players. In this case it was through enhancing everyone’s experience that accessibility was achieved. Accessibility may come with risks related to the control of how people interact with systems. For some creators this risk may seem too great, as a threat to their intellectual property or as a means of circumventing assessment in an educational virtual world. The payoff may significantly outweigh those risks. As educators and publishers look to virtual worlds for educational purposes this must be kept firmly in mind.

Secondly, immersion in a virtual world for a person with a disability is enabled, or at the very least enhanced, by the community of that environment as well as the technologies of it. Creators of virtual worlds for entertainment purposes likely better understand this than those who create for educational purposes. Put another way, you must create places people want to populate if you want to create the type of dynamic community that resulted in the add-on ecosystem of World of Warcraft. This is especially true if you want to leverage that community to help develop the environment. It is not enough to make a space and assign a class to populate it. There must be intrinsic value in their participation in that environment outside of the assignment. Relatedly, we must design environments we’re committed to supporting for long periods of time to see these sorts of results. World of Warcraft is well over a decade old. We should not expect this type of dynamism within the first year or two of the launch of a new environment.

The third lesson to take from this is that the expression and emergence of universal design principles appears to be a natural tendency for interfaces open to user modifications. Given that an inferential system of meaning already exists in virtual world development, and that the commercial success of World of Warcraft has had a significant impact on that system, it would be advantageous for future (and current) virtual world UI designers to pay considerable heed to the emergence of UDL principles in the add-on system. It’s important for UI designers to understand that UDL does not create a framework for separate interfaces but rather encourages flexibility within the existing ones that can meet a diverse set of needs. By providing “multiple means” of doing something one is ensuring that the largest number of people can interact with the virtual environment. This is desirable from a philosophical, accessibility viewpoint but also from a more practical, business one. The more people that can interact with your virtual world, the more people who are likely to buy it. There doesn’t have to be a loser in this and in fact a well-executed strategy of openness could even enhance the product and the publisher’s standing.

Flexible interface design is also a critical issue for virtual worlds for education. Publishers should closely consider the inferential systems of meaning of these environments and develop a common standard for flexible UI design. This might include a shared API library or at least a common implementation of the major elements of the UI (navigating the virtual world, interacting with objects, etc.). In conjunction with a user development community similar to the add-on community for World of Warcraft it should then be possible to broaden the appeal and impact of these types of systems. The goal is not to make all educational or learning environments look the same. Rather the goal should be building a base framework upon which those with very specific needs can get the same educational experience as everyone else using that system.

The World of Warcraft example is that an invested and dynamic user community can help to create these player remediations. It is even arguable that they can do a better job of this than an intentional UI designer since the collective experience of the user base is inherently richer and more diverse than a company can hope to build with a single UI development team. In striking a balance between user configurability and protecting the integrity of the game, Blizzard created an environment where nearly anyone can play a videogame, even the completely blind. By taking these findings into our practice we can create entertainment experiences and learning environments equally inviting to and effective for everyone.