Cyberchase Echo Explorers: Exploring Accessible Game Design for All Children

Ensuring accessibility for people with disabilities to games is a challenging but worthwhile endeavor. If we start with accessibility at the forefront of the development process, we simplify the process of including all children as potential users. This panel of presenters represents the team members who envisioned, designed, and programmed a fully accessible, online educational game, Cyberchase Echo Explorers, which is available for free at pbskids.org and the PBS KIDS Games App. The game is designed to be accessible to children with a range of disabilities including blindness/low vision, deafness/hard of hearing, intellectual disabilities, learning disabilities, ADHD, autism spectrum disorder, motor impairments, and more. Through this presentation, we will explain the process we used to create Echo Explorers, including its conception, iterative feedback from numerous experts, and continuous playtesting sessions. We will discuss characteristics of the game’s design and setting options that could enhance the opportunities for a child with a disability to play online games. We will share suggestions for game developers who are interested in incorporating accessibility into their future games. Designing games for children with disabilities leads to designing games for all children.