Player Features and Ideas Discussion

The issue of colour blindness and the lacking of anything to facilitate accessibility comes up from Time to Time.
I hadn't noticed the absence until someone complained about it.

As with that, a big old +1 from me.
Options are good

Greetings OP,

I'm all for accessibility, but as I mentioned here, I still think adressing the issue inside a single application has the wrong scope.
Microsoft Windows settings and Visolve, which Paranoid Lloyd dug up, could potentially be used to solve the issue for all programs you use on your computer. Sadly I didn't receive any feedback on whether either option worked satisfactorily or not last time, but I still think a global solution would be preferable to having each application/website doing this individually.

I haven't had the opportunity to read through the post you linked thsu far, however I wholeheartedly agree with you. I used to work as a web developer for both commercial and government organisations in the UK, I am a member of the British Computer Society and the International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP).

Having used acessibility productsall my life, I despise (maybe a bit strong) solving accessibility through every single application out there, it's far too expensive and there just aren't enough people who know accessibility well enough even if it were cost-effective.

Microsoft Windows' built-in magnifier does not work well with DirectX, because the magnifier itself uses DirectX, I don't understand and I won't pretend to understand graphics libraries, but I am sure DirectX is capable of multithreading. I have never heard of Visolve, but the products most visually impaired people use are the likes of ZoomText, by AiSquared and MAGic by Freedom Scientific. I recently attended a conference and asked AiSquared if they support DirectX and whether their application will be able to be used over appplications like games, if I was able during the last few years of my work to use it over Photoshop and Illustrator, why can't I use it over agame? - It appears their recent version is now capable of doing this.

However, these global applications are not capable of altering portions of the interface, they can only change the colour, contrast, magnification and such of the currently magnified view, including all objects that are being shown. So, for example, if I were to invert the colours of black and white to make it easier to read, the reverse will happen to other elements that I do not want to be inverted. I will have to consistently switch between modes for each object I'm looking at - this is what we are only capable of doing so far.

There are a number of groups of people who are challenging accessibility product makers to make their products work better with games, however, there is no API for this. The problem is not a matter of possibility but a matter of mindset, people think video games are video games and not computer applications, which they are, a game is also a program.

I could write up an addon for WoW, but I am not able to have my accessibility product plug-in to that addon or WoW in order to make it "better" for me. I hope this is clear enough.

Also, changing settines in Windows or Mac in their interface will not change anything in EVE's or other games interfaces. If I turn off Aero or whatever and use their high contrast window settings, it will not work with EVE.

I would like you to understand that I'm not asking CCP to make EVE the most accesible game in the world, most of my issues have been solved using the features of Mac OS. Also, the reason I use Mac is because it's cheaper, you're thinking, what?! - an iMac costs around £1500. A Windows computer will cost about £500 with a minimal graphics card, I will need a mid-range graphics card to run EVE at a reasonable level of quality graphics AND run a magnifier at the same time, so somewhere between £500-800. Add the magnification program, that's another £500. Add other accessibility products I need for work and what not, that's £900 (JAWS screen reader professional edition with system admin tools). So that's made that Windows computer £1900 ish.

macOS uses OpenGL for the magnifier, and I believe they will move this over to Metal, and it uses barely any resources and runs just as good if not better than the ZoomText alternative on Windows.

A lot of visually impaired people are out of work, so it's just not cost-effective for them to even bother, and that is why you won't see many of us playing games, because we dont' have hte computing power necessary to enjoy the game at a level that is near equal to other people.

I do not wish for any games company to all the sudden hire a group of accessibility professionals and have them ruin the work they have done, because in a perfect world accessible programs would still look like they were from 1995.

CCP know design, whoever is their UI guy for the game and the website obviously know what they are doing. I have no trouble at all using this forum for example - I am only using magnificationa nd nothing else, why should I?

"Why should I?" - this is something that we're trying to teach visually impaired youngsters to stop saying. However they do have a point. and it is far beyond the scope of this forum to discuss that, but the bsic gist of it is this: why do disabled people need to use more tools if there are alternative options available? Global design and tools built-in to operating systems will crush this phrase, because once we're able to just do things like everybody else, they'll stop saying that. the IAAP and others believe that inclusion avoids the need for external tools and frankly it's the right approach, people think acccessibility means ugly interfaces nad stark 1995 feel, but that simply isn't the case, if we're able to use an operating ysstem, we're certainly more than capable of using something else.

This has gotten very TL:DR. I will have my breakfast and read your link.

Need an expert on a really specific subject? EveO delivers.

Thank you very much for providing insight into the topic, Naomi. I'm really steeped in ignorance here and have only begun to realise the issue might be a bit more complicated than doing a palette swap. One more question if I may:

Do you think it would make sense to get graphics chip manufacturers on board?
Some of the necessary computations could maybe be done on the driver level, which would reduce performance issues quite a bit. The GC should have the right processors for the job and a lot of those, so setting a flag to make the GC do something on its own might also reduce the amount of information that needs to be sent over the bus. Granted, what the GC can do wouldn't go too far beyond conditional colour swapping, yet this might be a big part of what has to be done in terms of processing power.

It also seems to me that graphic chip manufacturers have started producing really extensive software suits to accompany their products lately. (The latest version of Geforce Experience won't even start until you create an account with your personal information. No joke.) So maybe solutions could be integrated with those.

If anyone, actually display manufacturers should have the necessary expertise on the subject. The problem I see here is that monitors usually don't have any processing power to speak of. In terms of intuitive user interface design monitor settings would be spot on though. Display modes: Text, Movies, Dyschromatopsia A38,....




PS: I might be going off-topic here a bit, sorry.

PPS: This whole human eyes/monitors interface really is wasting a lot of resources on both sides. Can't wait till that is phased out.

LOL.

Do you realize that if modding was possible issues like these would be already solved by community?

It seems to me you have no idea what is modding about and while soem mods can mess with the intented game experience (think about unique items drop mod for diablo2) its up to the user if he installs it or not. Not to mention that mods like these are not going to be possible to do in MMO type of game. Expect only visual/GUI modifications.

Just add more options to tinker GUI - smarter and faster option as it will not change anything for those who are satisfied with current colors/icons/gui/whatever.