Accessibility in VW

A poster/pdf from K.Mancuso and J.Cole introducing guidelines for accessibility in virtual worlds is online here…http://www.gimpgirl.com/ - it was presented at the 2009 IEEE Accessign the Future Conference (Boston) – more information about the conference is here http://ewh.ieee.org/conf/accessingthefuture/

See also this long post at http://blogs.educationau.edu.au/kjohnson/2009/10/12/accessiblity-for-the-differently-abled-in-virtual-environments/ 

Also  – see the bibliography on the ‘constructing disability in online worlds’ paper at this blog, for more references and resources on this topic.

 

Reconciling different approaches

So far, Deaf Studies and Disability Studies literature does not seem to overlap the Education, e-learning and Accessibility literature (which looks more like the games and disability literature – with a focus on tools, usability and access, for instance). Does this matter, or are they doing different jobs? Literature on disability, bodies and technology (often drawing on science and technology studies) might be relevant to thinking this through…

 

Next?

Next steps include more work with the data collected during the interviews in Second Life last month. Expect to focus this time on hegemony and identity. The first draft after the interviews was a mess as tried to cover too much. So cut the draft up, and focused on particular issues in the existing literature (resulting in the draft posted below). The other stuff I was trying to cover was about power, identity, marginalization or ‘othering’ – have various ideas about how this might work as an article but am still thinking and finding things to read. 

Aside from that…In the earlier short article for Access, I mentioned that voice had impacted less on ‘my’ SL than originally feared. This has been true – The sessions I’ve convened have had a loose, discussion format which works well with text (and would be a big muddle in voice I think, with everyone chipping in, etc.). But lately am thinking might have to revise re impact. SL and Education events within SL itself are becoming more frequent (I mean conferences, seminars and presentations for RL educators using SL, hosted within SL). The trend seems to be for these to use voice – with little if any provision for those not using it (meanwhile long established groups in SL keep using text. Not sure that text has been ‘taken seriously’ as an option by educators – not, at least, when it comes to peer-to-peer events that replicate real world conference conventions and involve status). Not sure how I feel about this. Interesting how difficult it is to find a place to speak from that does not feel pre-defined…as if…once I become somebody who can’t participate then I can only squeak back (complain, interrupt, hello, hello?) from this assigned seat on the outer limits – and squeaking from ‘here’ feels like signing a contract (a contract that inadvertently ‘fixes’ the very thing I’d rather undermine – which is not my marginality so much as ‘their’ centrality). So there’s all sorts of weird things to figure out…about individuation and ‘deficit models’ of difference, emerging conventions, ‘othering’, and whether Jelly wants to go to their parties anyway…

 

Draft paper – voice and deaf residents in SL

This paper has been reviewed and is now being revised. If you’d like to discuss contact the author.

Technology, Inclusion and Social Practices in Virtual Worlds

Diane Carr

London Knowledge Lab, IOE

23. 4. 2009

 

Introduction

 

When educators and e-learning researchers have debated issues of accessibility and technology, particular concerns have predominated. These include issues of legislation and compliance, and the design and adaptability of tools (software and hardware for example). These issues will be considered in this article. However, it will also be argued that it does not make sense to consider a technological feature’s relationship to disability or accessibility, without also considering the social practices that will shape the reception and implementation of any such tool. 

 Conclusion

 Here, again, are Linden Labs comments on deaf people, the introduction of the voice feature and education: ‘While a deaf Resident may find him or herself excluded in some social contexts, their ability to communicate in SL, has not been diminished from a technical viewpoint.’ At the crux of this statement is recognition that exclusion is socially determined in online worlds – although various degrees of accessibility will be supported or undermined by different technological features. It might well be the case that ‘Most educators would agree that learning is better facilitated between individuals with voice’, as Linden Labs have claimed. It may be, also, that new technical features will become available, equipping us to counter-act the potentially exclusionary practices found in various social, educational and professional contexts within Second Life (such as classes, seminars and conferences).

 

The research described in this paper has shown that deafness as disability is reproduced in virtual worlds, through discourse and practice. This suggests that identity within online worlds should be regarded as collaboratively constructed, and that the dynamics and resources that underpin and impact on these constructions are carried into virtual worlds from our everyday lives. There is nothing new about the exclusionary practices experienced by disabled residents in Second Life. However, online worlds and their various communities do demonstrate in new, clear ways, just how pervasive inequitable practices and discourses can be, and how difficult it can be to articulate and hence resist the power relations that are embedded within, and disseminated by, these same practices. Educators with an interest in equality, online learning, inclusion and technology cannot afford to overlook the implications.  

 

 

Footnotes

[1] The probject blog is online at http://learningfromsocialworlds.wordpress.com/

[2] See the article at http://secondlife.com/newsletter/2007_07/awsi.html

[3] This project’s website is online at http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/projects/deafweb/

[4] For more information on Dungeons & Dragons, go to http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/welcome

 

References

Addison, A. and O’Hare, L. (2008) How Can Massive Multi-User Virtual Environments and Virtual Role Play Enhance and Embed with Traditional Teaching Practice? Paper presented at ReLive08 Conference, Open University, UK, November 2008.

 

Alt-J Special Issue: Disability, technology and e-learning. Vol 14 no 1 March 2006

 

Boellstorff, T. (2008) Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human Princeton University Press

 

Carr, D, Oliver, M and Burn, A. (2008) ‘Learning, Teaching and Ambiguity in Virtual Worlds’, Paper presented at ReLive08 Conference, Open University, UK, November 2008. Online at http://learningfromsocialworlds.wordpress.com/  Accessed April 2009.

 

Carr, D and Oliver, M (2009) ‘Tanks, Chauffeurs and Backseat Drivers: Competence in MMORPGs’. Eludamos. Journal for Computer Game Culture. Vol 3, No 1 Online at http://eludamos.org/index.php/eludamos/issue/view/7/showToc  Accessed April 2009

 

Carr, D. and Oliver M. (in press 2009) ‘Second Life, Immersion and Learning’ in Social Computing and Virtual Communities, edited by P. Zaphiris and C. S. Ang. London: Taylor and Francis

 

Charmaz, K. (2006) Constructing Grounded Theory London: Sage

 

Cooper, M. (2006) Making online learning accessible to disabled students: an institutional case study. Alt-J Special Issue: Disability, technology and e-learning. Vol 14 no 1 March 2006

 

Correll, J. and Maruyama, T. (2005) ‘Deaf People: Fact Sheet No. 3’ Project Output. Deaf People and the Internet: Has the Internet Changed Deaf People’s Lives? University of Leeds, Loughborough University, University of Sheffield. Project Website: http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/projects/deafweb/  Accessed April 2009

 

Davis, L. J. (1995) Enforcing Normalcy: Disability, Deafness and the Body. London: Verso

 

Ess, C. and the AoIR ethics working committee (2002) ‘Ethical decision-making and Internet Research. Recommendations from the aoir ethics working committee’, online at  www.aoir.org/reports/ethics.pdf  Accessed April 2009

 

Goodfellow, R. (2008) ‘New Directions in Research into Learning Cultures in Online Education’ Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Networked Learning. Halkidiki, Greece. May http://www.networkedlearningconference.org.uk/past/nlc2008/abstracts/Goodfellow.htm  Accessed April 2009

 

Oliver, M. (1990) The Politics of Disablement. Basingstoke UK. Palgrave Macmillan.

 

Rutter, M. (2006) ‘Tutorial Chat: a case study of synchronous communication in a learning environment’ ALT-J Research in Learning Technology. Vol 14 no. 2, June pp 169-182

 

Seale, J., Drattan, E.A and Wald, M (2008) Exploring disabled learners’ experiences of e-learning. LEXDIS Project Final Report. University of Southampton. December 2008. http://www.lexdis.org/project/reports  Accessed April 2009

 

Sharpe, R., Benfield, G., Lessner, E., & De Cicco, E. (2005) Learner Scoping Study: Final Report
Online at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/elp_learneroutcomes.html  Accessed April 2009

 

Sheehy, K. (2008) ‘Virtual Environments: Issues and opportunities for developing inclusive educational practices’. Paper presented at ReLive08 Conference, Open University, UK, November 2008.

 

Wittel, Andreas (2000) ‘Ethnography on the Move: From Field to Net to Internet’, Forum: Qualitative Social Research Vol 1 No 1, Article 21 January 2000. Online at

http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/1131/2517  Accessed April 2009

 

More on related topics

There are more links and literature and things on these topics over at the other blog, Playhouse.

Here’s the link: http://playhouse.wordpress.com/category/games-access-and-disability-posts/

 

Interactive floor game for kids with CIs

Article -’Stepstone: An Interactive Floor Application for Hearing Impaired Children with a Cochlear Implant’ by Ole Sejer Iversen, Karen Johanne Kortbek, Kaspar Rosengreen Nielsen, Louise Aagaard.
From the abstract: “This paper describes a novel interactive floor application suited for hearing impaired children with a (CI).cochlear implant”. Keywords: Cochlear Implant Children, interactive floor, collaborative learning, participatory design. Link to PDF.

 

Event

Computer games, access, disability

London Knowledge Lab, Institute of Education
London Games Research Group
London Games Fringe

Monday 27^th October at the London Knowledge Lab, from 4 till 6 pm.

RSVP to Monica Chan (m.chan@ioe.ac.uk)
Questions? email the convener, Diane (d.carr@ioe.ac.uk)

Focus: Access and design issues in relation to games, gaming and online cultures. Presentations will be informal, and time allocated for discussion.

Contributors:

Martin Wright (GameLab London at London Metropolitan University)
Nick Weldin (www.rixcentre.org), and Tinker it! (www.tinker.it)
Siobhan Thomas, Inclusive New Media Project at University of East London 
David Squire (DESQ Ltd)
Diane Carr, link to project stuff (IOE, University of London)

More information is online here.

London Knowledge Lab
23-29 Emerald Street
London WC1N 3QS
Website

 

List of resources

A list of resources at www.game-accessibility.com, is online here.

 

…

 

Jelly

 

Heron Sanctuary

Article about The Heron Sanctuary where issues of community building and access are discussed.

http://eurekadejavu.blogspot.com/2008/01/story-of-heron-sanctuary.html

 

Looking back

From the perspective of mid 2008, the roll-out of an integrated voice feature during 2007 was less of a ‘big deal’ than feared – for me at least. Perhaps this might change if, for instance, voice becomes more default/universal if/as/when the technology improves. I can still use SL without a problem. It has not been an issue in teaching yet. Academic events, seminars, simulcasts and conferences in SL are not always deaf-friendly but then so much of this stuff has technical hitches and glitches my guess is that hearing participants don’t know what’s going on either. By way of illustration, real-life presentations broadcast into SL can look like this: 

Presentation in SL

 

Maybe I’ve got some settings wrong. Hmm. Anyway. The debates around the roll-out were interesting as well as anxiety provoking, and I hope to follow up on the issues this has raised.

 

Exclusion, community

If you are interested in online communities see Martin’s draft report on Exclusion and Community in SL (see under ‘pages’ to your right). Martin was not writing specifically ‘about deafness’ but the thread that he uses as data relates to these issues. The plan is that we’ll collaborate on the draft and convert it to a journal article.

 

Voice in SL discussed on the forum

The aftermath of the roll-out of voice in SL is still being discussed at the forum (November), this thread goes for 12 pages (online here for folks with SL log-ins).

It seems voice is a ‘bigger deal’ in SL than in WoW, but not as big a deal as once feared.

The contributors to this discussion (who may or may not be representative!) seem to agree that voice is less of a change than people thought it would be. Many prefer not to use voice (or prefer to use it sparingly) for technical or other reasons. Other people say they like it alot. There are some (hotly contested) remarks about RL men with female avatars being ‘outed’ by voice (ie the assumption that female avatars not on voice, hide a RL male). No-one identifying as deaf took part in the thread. There are a few comments stating that ‘voice is good for education and business communities’ which rather assumes that such communities are for hearing people.

All in all, the discussion implies that voice has not had a uniform impact across SL but that practices in particular situations have changed – So, in some contexts, voice might now be the norm, but not in SL as a whole. That’s my impression, but it’s hard to judge this just from walking around SL. Voice users are indicated to one another, but not to us non-voice-users (hmmmmm, is that fair?). I do walk past groups where there is ‘text silence’ but perhaps they are IMing….about me being a bloke in RL.

Here (August) is another 7 pages on the topic. Sheesh.

 

WoW and the aftermath of voice

There’s a recent thread on the WoW forums which addresses the ramifications of the voice roll out, online here…

To sum up the thread – most (presumably hearing) people who were using Ventrillo before, have stuck with it because they find that it works better. Others complain that the in-game voice feature doesnt work (it is too quiet, voices get mangled, sounds are poorly differentiated, causes lag). Ah, the irony.

We started new alts the other week, now in mid 20’s, and it seems as if the voice feature has not made any difference to my experience of WoW (either with the new characters, or our mains). Nobody, for instance, has asked me about using voice in any casual groups, instances or in battlefields. As it happens, P’s guild still don’t use ventrillo or in-game voice, perhaps because they are RP (and his main is lvl 70 now).

 

Guild Wars

Guild Wars (another MMORPG)
Guild of the Week
Elite Deaf Team
A short report and some comments from a Guild Wars guild for deaf/Deaf players.

And if you’ve not come across it before…Deaf Gamers, the website for deaf gamers.

 

SL voice announcement plus comments/responses

Here’s the LL announcement about the roll out of voice again, this time with 143 comments attached.

There are at least 3 deaf/hearing impaired responses (not happy) some ‘english as a second language’ responses (not happy either), and loads and loads of people just screaming things like “SL isn’t at all stable and this has aggravated those existing technical problems” (really, really not happy).

One of the re-occurring logic-pretzels in these discussion/forum threads, about deafness and the voice feature, is the response to the issue of deaf people’s alienation/marginalisation in relation to the voice feature, with the line ‘Hey, don’t worry, it’s a choice, you don’t have to use it!’ which, er…does not really makes sense to me, as an argument.

Like I’ve said before, my feeling at this point is that it will take the introduction of voice technology in combination with the social/communal uptake of voice as the ‘default’ or ‘normal’ or ‘regular’ or ‘efficient’ or ‘transparent’ mode of communication in particular contexts (meetings, seminars) to disable users.

Ha – of course, it the thing keeps crashing every 30 seconds, that’ll be annoying too…

Meanwhile, I’ve been making shirts. Seems this one is saying ‘No Ears’ – Hmmm. back to the drawing board…

Oh another argument that doesn’t always quite make sense is that the voice feature is ‘good’ for people with mobility issues/arthritis/rsi… This might be true for lots of people but for a colleague of mine who relies on voice-recognition software rather than a mouse/keyboard to use a computer (she uses ‘Dragon’), things are not so straightforward. We talked about it a while ago and what she found (this was before the voice rollout) is that when using SL, the textbox/chat worked fine with her voice-recognition/input software. The usability problems arose when she tried to navigate either the interface, or the world itself, or move her avatar anywhere. Chatting was not the problem.

 

Voice…voice tutorials

A report (and a mix of comments) about a positive experience with voice in SL (well, I should include one…) at Angela Thomas’ blog.

It seems that the technical aspects are quite tricky.

For those who feel a need to ‘go that way’ Nik Peachey has made some interface tutorials about voice and they’re available here.

dc

 

v-day

Voice arrives in SL – here’s a roundup and links to FAQ.

Aside from anything else, is it a research issue that the voice feature is going to stuff up chatlogs a bit…?

I think I’m out of synch here – for me, this is a major shift in the information/social landscape of SL that has significant repercussions (phenomenological/representational).

Most folks seem to regard it as an addition, an accessory, to Second Life – I wonder, instead, if its a fundamental change to what SL is.

It is, at least, a fundamental change to what SL is for me.

dc

 

World of Warcraft new voice feature

Here’s a short article and another one (with some links) about the new integrated voice feature in WoW.
And some responses from the wow forums.
Here’s another short article about it.
One of the more coherent threads from the wow forums on the topic is here…
And one of the more succinct is here…

Because there’s a long history of using voice in WoW in particular situations (raids, end game instances) rather than across the game as a whole, I’d not assume that the arrival of the integrated voice feature (2.2?) will resemble the arrival of the voice feature in SL…but familar issues are being discussed at the forums. There’s concern that it will ruin the game, ruin the ‘immersion’; that voice will mean lots of people yelling drivel/abuse, and there’s the assumption that ‘if you dont use voice it’s because you’re a man playing a woman character’ (behind every sexy-lady night elf etc. etc.). I’ve not found posts that talk about how the voice feature might be differently employed on RP servers (compared to PVE or PVP servers) but it would seem at least a possibility. Maybe.

dc

 

Lucky!

The recently discussed article (‘Voice as Choice’, see earlier post) was annoying, which is lucky, because thinking about why it was annoying has helped to clarify how the introduction of voice relates to our work on this project. 

Certain player-communities (like those undertaking Role-Play, perhaps) might not automatically adopt voice as a default mode of communication. Other communities will. There are some indications that ’serious’ SL (business, education) users will adopt voice as the default/preferred mode.

To reiterate, it’s not so much the coming of voice to SL that’s the issue that we might explore. It is the emergence of conventions around the use of voice within particular user-groups or genres of event.

Luckily, this links to the work that we are doing on the question of ‘conventions’ (see the notes from our project meetings under the Project Update category), and the relationship between conventions, and social context, expertise, legitimate participation, etc.     

dc

 

Normativity /marginality

This post follows directly on from my earlier comments about the L.Labs article on voice, see the ‘Voice as Choice’ post.

From Tony Walsh’s site, Clickable Culture

Quote
Are Second Life residents prepared for this intrusion of reality in their virtual world? I don’t think so, but I suspect many will opt to use the service in the long run. Those who won’t opt in include gender-benders, roleplayers, those with speech impediments, the deaf, and those uncomfortable with their language skills or accents.
Unquote

I don’t have an issue with this comment as it appeared in its original context.

Here, however, it is reproduced as an indicative example of the sort of thing I mean when I ask ‘what will potentially become ‘the norm’ and what will be marginalised/’different’ etc. once voice rolls out in SL?’

And I’m speaking about inter-personal and social conventions and expectations (which might be implicit and manifest-in-practice, rather than stated, legislative, overt) and which will shift in different contexts, but would seem to have particular implications for ‘professional practice’ in SL (where specific modes and conventions of self-presentation might be generated and adhered to, while other modes are implicity constructed/’default to’ the inappropriate) – and here I’m thinking of Iris Marion Young’s writing in Justice and the Polictics of Difference, and I’m thinking about a clash between a rhetoric of inclusion, and practices of homogeneity and exclusion.

dc

 

Articles on voice in MMORPGs

A good overview of the issues surrounding the introduction of voice, is in the article ‘Vox Lindeni‘, by Prokofy Neva at the Second Life Herald, which includes a mention and link to this article:

Not Yet you Fools! By Richard A.Bartle
Online at GameGirlAdvance, written in 2003, about the introduction of voice into multiplayer online games.
Sample quote: ‘If you introduce reality into a virtual world, it’s no longer a virtual world: it’s just an adjunct to the real world. It ceases to be a place, and reverts to being a medium’.

 

Voice as Choice

In a recent article at SecondOpinion titled As We See It, SL Voice: Another Valuable Choice, LindenLabs respond to concerns about deaf exclusion, by listing the disabilities that will be enabled by the introduction of voice.

The question is not, for me, whether voice will be useful to people with various disabilities (the article has thoughtfully included a list).

The question is ‘what will become the norm, the dominant, the preferred, efficient and ‘normal’ in Second Life?’.

Rather like when, in the same article, it is asserted that ‘Most educators would agree that learning is better facilitated between individuals with voice’.

Aggh.

dc

Image: O-so-Subtle messages through the medium of fashion.

 

SL and accessibility

My colleague Sue Cranmer (http://coursesforall.wordpress.com/) is researching accessibility guidelines and e-learning.
Sue has an interest in SL also, and she has passed me some links and comments:

From Sue (quote)
The following blog helpfully outlines some of the issues:
http://www.it-director.com/blogs/Abrahams_Accessibility/2007/1/second_life_open_source_accessible_.html
Also the RNIB site reports that the Web Accessibility Initiative team are on the case, here:
http://www.rnib.org.uk/wacblog/news/judy-brewer-visits-second-life/
On the other hand, some users with mobility impairments are saying that second life is supporting the possibility of walking and running which is not possible in their first lives, here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/access20/2007/04/second_hand_look_at_second_lif.shtml
(unquote)

On a sort-of-related note, here is a recent thread on the forum at the FilmFour website from excluded viewers about ‘the cost of subtitles’, that I look forward to posting to, if I ever get my log-on authorised…really interesting website actually, as there’s a PDF about OFCOM and obligations to diversity and inclusion, and rhetoric about feedback, interaction, and discussion is splattered all over the site…Yet it is not clear how you would actually contact anyone. Particularly at 10.00 pm on a Sunday night when F4 are broadcasting a recently released feature film without subtitles. Like…last night (agggh).

 

writing vs. voice

This morning I read that Derrida, in Of Grammatology contests ‘ a tradition of Western thought in which writing has consistently been cast in a role subordinate to that of speech. Whereas speech is habitually associated with reason and rationality [...] and the voice is perceived as being closer to the inner ‘truth’ of individual consciousness, writing is considered to be a secondary extension or supplement to the voice, an auxiliary technology employed by human reason but not essential to it. Speech is the guarantor of presence and of authenticity, whereas writing represents artifice and absence, the alienation and deferment of presence.’
Derrida, Johnson, C. NY:Routledge 1999 pp 4-5

Meanwhile, more information about the rolling out of voice in SL including information about how it works can be found here at the voice mentors’ wiki.