Barrier Determination Framework for Video Game Analysis Regarding Users with Visual Impairments

People with visual impairments are not often considered as a target market within todays growing video game industry. A lack of funded research and development focused on this issue has left few alternatives for the growing demographic of visually impaired players. The most prominent solutions derive from user adaptations or low budget audio game development.

Both adaptions have severe problems in their delivery of quality products to satisfy player needs, as well as cater to specific visual impairment types commonly found within the demographic.

This thesis aims to determine the individual abilities and needs of visual impairment types, specifically in relation to activity and apply theories of activity to produce a framework of analysis for gameplay activity, resulting in barrier determination within gameplay as well as analysis of suitability within gameplay for specific visual impairment types.