Teaching Accessible Design Through Critical Making and Board Games

Adam Strantz, Miami University

The Re-Design Project


In the spirit of materiality, critical making, DIY and lifehacks I created a visual redesign assignment for students in my introductory design class in the Emerging Technology in Business and Design major. ETBD majors study programming, graphic design, digital publishing, and video games in order to graduate with a large number of design and tech skills. Many of our professional/technical writing majors also take ETBD courses as they are cross-listed with English classes, which in turn leads to a number of students becoming double majors in both programs. The assignment was piloted in the course this previous year for 24 students and involved re-designing a board game of their choosing to better provide an accessible, user-friendly experience. By focusing on re-design, students who were mostly new to the concept of game design (although many of them enjoyed playing games regularly) could focus on tweaking and re-configuring specific design elements for accessibility without needing to fundamentally change the workings of a game from the ground up. I also felt that re-design would allow students to better critique game elements without needing to scrutinize themselves as the original designer. My students learned the basics of good visual design throughout the course alongside readings and support on accessibility, universal design, and designing for disability. Equipped with this perspective on design, the students were tasked with selecting a game, highlighting some of its design features, and then re-designing some of those components following the heuristic guidelines of Meeple Like Us. The assignment then involved turning in a report with accompanying visual descriptions and picture mockups of at least three redesigned elements.

I found games, especially board games, to be a unique lens for students to examine multiple components of accessible design at once. Games have numerous hands-on, material features including the components themselves, organization of elements, size and space constraints, and material dexterity requirements. For example you might use color to signify a lot of info because space is limited on a card, but what about users with colorblindness? Or overwhelming users with too many icons to remember? Although the focus of the course was on visual design, in following the Meeple Like Us heuristic I also encouraged students to examine issues such as rule complexity and cognitive overload on cards which could be addressed through accessible design.

Download the Assignment Prompt

In the following four sections, select student examples are presented organized by the accesibility lens applied to their game. While stemming from the heuristic provided by Meeple Like Us, students were free to use the lens broadly to approach their analysis of the game. Students would also frequently find overlap in the different lenses, such as cognitive complexity leading to frustrating emotions due to missplays or too many choices during the game.

Lens: Visual

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The visual lens includes all elements of visual design including sizing and spacing issues, color/contrast issues, and colorblindness.

Lens: Cognitive

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The cognitive lens includes elements of game design relating to complexity, memorization, understanding of rules, and overall density of text on game materials.

Lens: Physical

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The physical lens covers issues relating to interacting with the game through touch, bodily movement, and fine-motor skills. The ability to move, interact with game pieces, and physically do what is required by the game is analyzed.

Lens: Emotional

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The emotional lens looks at the game from the perspective of how players feel while playing the game. This may involve feelings of frustration, joy and sadness in winning and losing, or "feel bad" moments in gaming where one player is excluded from play.