An inclusive educational game usable via screen reader on a touch-screen

Abstract

Serious games are increasingly used for supporting education and many other activities via entertainment. Unfortunately, they are not accessible to visually-impaired people who have a very limited selection for games, especially in the mobile context. Usually they can only rely on specific games. Our aim is to investigate how to overcome this gap for visually-impaired people. For this, we are presenting a mobile educational game accessible also via screen reader on a touch-screen. Through the app we investigated: (1) a gesture-based interaction modality to perform exercises on a touch-screen when a screen reader is running; (2) an equal opportunity in enjoying perception also by those who cannot see the user interface. A pilot test confirmed a positive impact of the first prototype on the end-users.