Tara Voelker (Senior Accessibility Lead, Xbox Game Studios)
Brannon Zahand (Senior Gaming Accessibility Program Manager, Microsoft)
Location: Room 301, South Hall
Date: Wednesday, March 22
Time: 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Pass Type:
All Access Pass, Core Pass, Summits Pass, Expo Pass, Audio Pass, Independent Games Summit Pass
Topic:
Advocacy, Production & Team Leadership
Format:
Lecture
Vault Recording: Video
Audience Level: All
Creating an accessible product can't be done by one person, it takes a village.
In this talk, Tara Voelker and Brannon Zahand will describe how Xbox Game Studios runs their accessibility team, the different roles that partner to support Xbox Game Studios, and the importance of inclusion of disabled gamers during the process. They'll also go through a variety of platform-agnostic accessibility resources offered by Microsoft and others, explaining how and when to utilize each in your game development lifecycle.
They will also go into best practices on engaging the Gaming & Disability Community, as well as how to turn accessibility-related information about your own products into fantastic resources for gamers with disabilities and others.
Takeaway
Attendees will learn how program managers, designers, user researchers, and quality assurance are all crucial to creating accessible experiences, and know how to leverage these roles in an accessibility program. They will also learn strategies for utilizing platform-agnostic accessibility resources, and best practices for engaging the Gaming & Disability Community.
Intended Audience
This is for game designers, engineers, producers, testers, and release managers. No prior knowledge of game accessibility is required.