GAME ACTIVITIES ACCESSIBLE ALSO TO THE BLIND AND THE VISUALLY IMPAIREDby Marco Lombardi and Nazzareno Giannelli

ACCESSIBLE SOCIAL MULTISENSORY EDUCATIONAL FUN

Nowadays, in the world, there are almost 285 million people suffering from visual impairment. Most of them are in Africa, Asia and other areas where the life conditions are more difficult, but even in the developed countries, we can count something like 30 millions of visually impaired people, of which 11 millions are under fifty years old.old.

Even if there are many tools, like white canes, audio books or braille printers, on the market, we identified a lack of engaging and interactive activities that can give the opportunity to the visually impaired to share some important moment with their friends and family.

There are tools for any kind of daily activity imaginable, but what is missing is something that builds fun and educational interaction, that teaches while enjoying the play. The products available today are just accessible versions of classic games like chess and domino, but there is nothing designed from the beginning to be played andand enjoyed by blind and visually impaired children, teenagers or even adults.

There are11.000.000of visually impaired people

under fifty years oldin the developed countries

ISSUE: social interactions and sharing needs.

To play is the primary goal of our first years of life, is our full time job for many hours a day at that time and the way we learn most of the things we know about what is surrounding us. It’s an activity that shapes us has human beings, that teaches us the importance of rules and that gives us the opportunity to share some great time with friends and familand family.

With the Giochi Accessibili (Accessible Games) project, we want to offer this opportunity also to the millions of people that suffer of sight impairment, extending the pleasure of gaming with multisensory experiences to everyone.

InIn the first place, this is achieved by designing and producing new board games, playable also by visually impaired and blind people, that are multisensory and fun.

In conjunction with that, we want to make accessible also every major classic board game that many people has at home, designing what we call plugins: a small kit of tokens, cards or other components that lets the visually impaired to join the play. This is a great way to include the sight impaired people in a wide range of well known and easily easily available social games.

IDEA: the importance of play.

WHY: analog gaming in the digitalized world.

We are in the middle of a digital revolution nowadays. We are constantly connected to the others with our smartphones, tablets and pcs, in a way that never before has been able to make our lifes more efficients.

ButBut this process is causing a disconnection from reality: even when we could simply share a meal, a chat or a walk with someone, we are constantly

pulled back to our technological gadgets with an ongoing flux of notifications and messages.

That’sThat’s why we chose to design analog game experiences, with the power of really bring people together. The importance of sharing joyful moments is valuable for everyone, even for the sight impaired and blind people that don’t have as much choices as everyone else when it comes to

social activities and engaging experiences. Cooperation, strategy and engagement are involved when playing a board game, following the rules and overcoming the obstacles during the match.

PRINCIPLES: accessible games.

There are five principles that are driving our idea: the game activities we design have to be accessible, social, multisensory, educational and fun. Our products are easily playable by blind and visually impaired people, thanks to the recognizable shapes of the game pieces, a particular printing technique that makes touch sensitive shapes on paper and a carefulcareful use of color contrast for helping the sight impaired finding the different game parts.

The careful choice of the materials and the study behind the various shapes add a multisensory layer to the Giochi Accessibili products, making them even more interesting and enjoyable for everyone.

ThisThis kind of games are incredibly educational for blind and visually impaired children and teenagers, because, while playing, they can improve their touch sensitivity and orientation skills, making

them more confident and secure.

ACCESSIBLE SOCIAL MULTISENSORY EDUCATIONAL FUN

Having millions of visually impaired people all over the world, color and color contrast becomes an incredibly powerful design choice for making the games easily accessible to them. Has shown in the picture on the right, a careful choice of colors and contrast can make the game parts recognizable even with a bad vision.

AnotherAnother important aspect involved, is the possibility of easily identify the game parts by touching them. This leads us to many careful choices when designing and engineering our products, having always in mind that these games have to be accessible and fun for everyone.

WithWith these principles in mind, we can design game activities that invites to play also the blind and the visually impaired, with multisensory stimuli that brings to the table an important layer of interaction.

PRINCIPLES: color contrast and recognizable shapes.

Having to deal with blind and visually impaired people, it’s even more important to deeply test every product and every slight change in the game mechanics. For this reason prototyping our first two games, Codis and Trick or Treat, we made use of three different technologies: touch sensitive printing on paper, 3d printing and laser cutting.

TheThe first one involves a specific kind of paper sheet that has air capsules inside. Putting it in a particular

printer, the black parts of the printed shapes are heated by the printer, the air capsules inside are swell up and the drawing becomes considerably high and easy to feel with touch. Thanks to Centro Braille San Giacomo (Bologna, Italy) we are able to use this kind of technology in our games.

3d3d printing in Italy had a great year in 2013. We were lucky from the beginning for teaming up with WASProject (World’s Advanced Saving Project), a

startup from Faenza (Italy) that won important prizes thanks to the great idea that is driving their work: to print cheap clay houses with huge 3d printers.

AnotherAnother important parnership for us, is the one with Vectorealism from Milan, specializing in laser cutting with a wide range of materials. Thanks to them we can design many game pieces, in wood or other materials, that makes the game more stable.

HOW: technologies involved.

ALL TOGETHER

LifeLife is an amazing journey with other people, made to share emotions and experiences. The ability to know in depth the many shades that govern existence is one of the absolute privilege which every person enjoys from birth. Childhood and adolescence are the moments in which the person knows itself and the outside world, through the firstfirst contacts with peers. From this moment on, life takes its meaning only if approached in company of other people, that they can be near or far, but anyway "similar". Life is a cooperative game that is fun only if approached with friends. Playing alone is not part of the human soul.

EDUCATION

OurOur games are innovative educational tools. Children are educated during growth because childhood is the period when the foundations of a person's character are formed. The knowledge of themselves and of external reality, formed by other people, is part of the issues on which education is based. Our mission is to create opportunities for blindblind children or adolescents to use educational games that can put them in touch with their able-bodied peers. We strongly believe that sharing knowledge is important at any age, but it appears essential during the first years of life.

BREAKING STEREOTYPES

OurOur greatest desire is to let understand to millions of people that disability is just a fraction of who is affected from it. In the everyday life, in addition to architectural boundaries, there are mental barriers that divide abled and disabled people. We want to break these barriers and make people understand that we are all equal and we live in the same way.

IMPACT: I'm like you.

Our most important partnership is with associations and institutes for the blind in Italy, Europe and worldwide. We already have strong connections with this kind of associations in Italy and we are actually developing more of them all over the world. They play a primary role in our business, because, through them, we get access to anan endless flow of informations and advices, we get in touch with teachers and experts in that field and we can directly involve blind and visually impaired people in the design process of our products. Through our work, we want to give a louder voice to these associations.

We want to bring our games inside the schools, organizing educational and fun activities in the primary and secondary school. With the help of the associations and institutes for the blind, we will organize different gaming days where kids and teenagers can experience multisensory activities and get to know about blindness and visual impairement.impairement.

Games and gamification are powerful tools for raising the engagement of kids and teenagers in the educational field, letting them learn while having social interactions and fun.

NETWORKING: synergy and collaboration.

HOME SCHOOLS

ASSOCIATIONS AND INSTITUTESFOR THE BLIND

Even if the project started by mainly designing board games with engaging mechanics for children and teenagers between six and eighteen years old, we are now opening up to many other possibilities. We are strongly interested in the educational capabilities offered by games and game mechanics and we would like to apply the multisensory philosopphilosophy to products for kids with other disabilities.

We are in touch with many personalities of the board games market and the educational world, establishing new partnerships for the creation of multisensory experiences.

We imagine a future where in every house there will be a 3d printer deploying any kind of gadget or tool.

We see ourselves giving to people the files for their 3d printer or laser cutting machine, with which they can build their own copy of our games. Without leaving their home and without waiting the carrier to knock at the door.

We believe in a future where games are not a distraction, but a valuable alternative to traditional education, a powerful weapon against discrimination and isolation .

NEXT STEPS: sensory activities and future scenario.