Uncontrollable: A User Experience Design Proposal for a Hands-Free Gaming Accessibility Framework

Abstract

The technology necessary for hands-free video gaming is available, especially for head-gesture-centric controls. However, remapping controls to head gestures ranges from frustratingly tedious to impossible. I propose a common language of gestures and game actions that categorizes the controls by their use frequency. My suggested categories are primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary. The most preferred gestures and more frequently used controls are classified as primary while the least preferred gestures and least frequently used controls classified as quaternary. I also propose constructing an interface software and API to gather data from game designers, hardware designers, and users to suggest optimized game controls for users requiring accessibility. I created a demo for one branch of this for my technical project -- a game to help players determine which gestures they can perform the most accurately so that these gestures may be paired with controls most vital to successful gameplay.