Senior Accessibility Producer at
@Netflix
Games | Co-Director of Award-Winning
@GA_Conf
|
@BAFTA
Member | Indie Brewery Bartender | be accessible, do crime ✨
📢 SURPRISE
🎟️Tickets are officially LIVE!
We know some companies have a fiscal year that ends this month, so we thought it might be useful to get it up now for anyone who has some use it or lose it budget.
In my career I’ve been:
- asked who I slept with to get my job
- accused of sleeping with a coworker because I was “nice” to them
- mistaken for a “booth babe” at E3 because I couldn’t possibly be on the dev team
- told at a business dinner I should leave with my new soulmate
📣 BIG NEWS 📣
After some uncertainty after Mixer’s closure, I’m excited to announce I have finally been cemented in a new role.
👋🏻 Say hello to Xbox’s newest full time Game Accessibility PM.
I can’t wait to dive in 🥳
✨Job Update: Role Change✨
I'm moving to
@Xbox
Studios to help our 1st party dev teams make games more accessible!
I've loved all of the projects I've worked over the last year doing full-time accessibility, but I'm incredibly excited to be 100% back into
🎮VIDEO GAMES🎮
✨NEWS ✨
I can't even believe this is real.
I not only have a full time game accessibility job, but I'm a lead? At Xbox?
No one wake me up if this is a dream.
When I started at Irrational, I was the Multiplayer QA Lead. When I left, I was technically QA Level Lead but honestly spent 50% of my time as a personal Ken secretary, sitting in 1:1 meetings to take very specific notes, entering them in as tasks, and following up with Rod.
Matt Booty: *important and deep thoughts about the gaming business during company meeting*
Xbox Game Studios Employees: THERE IS A CAT, SHOW US THE CAT!!! 🐈⬛
Cats out of the bag! 🐈
Say hello to the new Disability at Microsoft ERG Co-Chair.
Excited to help make sure
@Microsoft
is a great place to work for people with disabilities. ❤️✨
I get asked a lot about where to start on game accessibility.
If you're stuck, I highly recommend evaluating your game in 4 largest problem areas:
-Control Remapping
-Text Size
-Colorblindness
-Subtitle Presentation
#gamedev
#a11y
A Thread:
I am amazed every day that I am the head of accessibility for Xbox Game Studios.
The fact that my leadership in studios fully trusts me to build this program as I see fit is so amazing.
🤯
Of course couldn’t due it without it my supporting teams, but still.
Today is my last day at Xbox 💚
I'm so proud of the program we've built & I know it will last thanks to the incredible accessibility champs across our studios.
Taking a few weeks off before starting something new post
#GAConf
.
Thank you all for the memories and the journey 🎮
Accessibility for
#ForzaHorizon5
will continue in patches shortly after launch with the addition of ASL/BSL interpreters for cutscenes!
Check it out 👀
#gamdev
#a11y
Just so you know HOW MUCH we didn't know this was coming, last week they asked me to send in my picture for our town hall to celebrate my 3 year Mixer anniversary
Hi my soon to be
#ActivisionBlizzard
co-workers!
Once the papers are all signed, you are all welcome to join the Xbox Game Studios Accessibility Champs program!
We meet every month, have all sorts of trainings, guest speakers, and opportunities to talk to other studios!
One of my friends just described “watermelon status” projects.
They’re projects that have a green status to stakeholder/external groups but an internal red status to the actual project teams.
I really like this term! A fun word for a terrible problem. 🍉
Hi! You may have seen me cry on the internet this week after the Forza Horizon 5 win for Innovation in Accessibility.
Let’s talk about why I became a ball bag -
A Thread 🧵
I have gotten news that I am being relocated to another team in Xbox. I am not going to be sharing any additional details at this time, but once I've moved and landed, I'll let you know about my next adventure. 🎮
I've been helping to get this launched & it's available to Insiders now!
Xbox Party Chat, used by tens of millions of gamers for voice & text chat, will now support transcribing speech into text & synthesis of speech from text 💚
Read more about it here :
On Display at Microsoft outside the Commons today. 🎮
Time people spend each week playing online games:
In their 70s - 5hours.
In their 20s - 5.6 hours.
Just another reason for game accessibility!
#a11y
#gamedev
oh god, we have a new PM on my team and she's young and bright-eyed and has such high hopes for gaming changing the world and accessibility
SHE MUST BE PROTECTED AT ALL COSTS
I kept telling people (including
@XboxP3
) I was going to ugly cry when the Xbox Adaptive Controller was announced as a joke.
JOKES ON ME. I DID UGLY CRY.
That's how powerful this project is. 💚
#GAAD
#a11y
I know it’s silly but I still get excited to see my name in the credits. The fact that I have multiple titles as “Accessibility Lead” under my belt blows my mind.
Have you noticed that a lot of games either don't have screen reader support or if they do it ... leaves something to be desired?
This is because it's incredibly hard to create screen reader experiences from a development process.
Let's break it down!
#gamdev
#a11y
🧵1/10
☺️Accessibility Folks: Inclusive design and accessibility options can unlock games for disabled gamers
😡Them: Just git gud, that would ruin Elden Ring, they would never do that
😈Grant: Well ACTUALLY -
👀
I’m not crying, YOU’RE CRYING 😭
Years ago I was told no one would listen to me about accessibility because it wasn’t main stream. Now it’s in a
#SuperBowl
ad.
So I guess, uh, SUCK IT, HATERS. 😘
I’m sad beyond words to share the passing of my father.
Dad was very proud of his kids, time in the service & his Forza 2 ranking, placing Top 200 worldwide for the Class A fastest lap in the New York Circuit.
In his honor, please donate a book to your local library.
Elden Ring is not accessible to everyone by any standard, but the fact that at least one group of people are able to play with less barriers than previous titles while sticking to the game's core pillars shows that inclusive design can and does work without "ruining" games.
WAIT!
One last memory. I remember the day remappable controls got cut. The feature was buggy & we didn't have time to fix it.
I stormed into Rod's office and started crying.
He gave me a glass of whiskey and let me cry it out while we talked about how hard this project was.
♿️ Let's talk about accessibility testing! ♿️
I get asked a lot about how QA can support making games accessible! They can, and totally should be, part of the process.
🧵Here are some thoughts, a thread!
1/11
#GameDev
#A11y
#QA
With today's update for
@WatchMixer
Embers, we also added
⚠️CUSTOMIZABLE CHAT COLORS⚠️
Go! Update them! Make them work for you! Set your favorite colors or make them colorblind friendly!
💙
#streaming
#a11y
#mixermagic
Today
@Xbox
shares the Gaming Accessibility Fundamentals Learning Path, a ✨free ✨course on the game accessibility basics!
Check it out now! You may see some familiar faces 👀
#gamedev
#a11y
#gaconf
Gamers yelling in the comments “DON’T RUIN OUR GAME WITH EASY MODE” when
1) it’s not YOUR game
2) I didn’t ask for it
I want intentional inclusive design & product flexibility so the level of challenge presented to you equals the reward from beating it, so everyone has fun ✨
Need accessibility support in Starfield?
Whether it’s a question, a design struggle, or a missing feature -
💫 Please report through the Bethesda support page! 💫
This is the only way we can guarantee your feedback makes it to the dev team.
We've learned that accessibility is more than just options. You have to ensure that you're focusing on intentional design. Checklists, no matter what type, aren't a substitute. You must be intentionally inclusive every step of the way.
Thrilled to announce I've been accepted as a
@BAFTA
member!
Not only is it a tremendous honor to be recognized by such a prestigious institution personally, it shows video games are embracing accessibility as a cornerstone of our industry.
My dad would be proud. 💕
Did you know about adding alt text on Twitter? It’s not only easy, but super fast to do!
Alt text is how screen readers are able to describe pictures. It especially important when your image has important text!
So, this trophy arrived for me to send out AFTER
@TangoGameworks
closed.
I’ve tried reaching out to some folks, but no response yet.
Any idea how I get this to SOMEONE who worked on the Hi-Fi Rush dev team?
If I had $5 for every time a horror game had an uncaptioned, ringing telephone that was critical to plot advancement, I’d have enough money to fund my own accessible horror game studio by now.
Reflecting recent layoffs, it's crucial to recognize a concerning trend – individuals in the inclusion and DE&I space are disproportionately affected. Diverse candidates, who often face barriers to reaching positions of power, find themselves at the forefront of these cuts. 1/2
In a hurry but still trying to be inclusive and accessible with your Twitter videos?
No worries!
Here are some ✨INCREDIBLY EASY ✨options to get captions 💥FAST💥 so you don't leave anyone out.
🧵a thread
Remember when COUNTLESS accessibility advocates asked for some sort of indoor mode at launch?
#a11y
"Niantic announced the game will see more updates that focus on improving the at-home experience including remote ways to raid."
In recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month,
@Xbox
is amplifying voices of empathy, honesty, and mental health awareness. Learn more:
#MentalHealthAwarenessMonth
✨How it started:
“We're researching... audio and tactile feedback options that might one day allow a completely sightless gamers to play a Forza game.”-
@jonk1969
🔥How it's going:
Blind Driving Assists (BDA) announced
if you only fund your accessibility team so they can do compliance verification, then they're a compliance team, not accessibility.
Accessibility is so much more than a checklist.
As today draws to a close, so does my last day of officially being the Gaming and Disability Community Lead as part of Gaming for Everyone 💚
It’s been an amazing journey, and can’t wait to see what the new leads do. ✨
To people with disabilities who felt included at Mixer because WE PURPOSEFULLY DID THAT - I'm sorry it went down like this.
I'm sorry that we're throwing accessibility features like Share Controller in the trash because no one thought about what they meant to the community.
After an amazing 5 years, I am stepping down as Lead of the Gaming & Disability employee resource group at Xbox.
It's time for someone else to have the opportunity.💚
& Yes, I'll still be around, lurking on the steering committee for a bit, you can't get rid of me that easy.
It was incredibly hard to do my *actual* job of leading a team of ... I don't remember, 12 or 14, because I wasn't available because of the Ken meetings for huge chunks of the day.