Accessible Digital Game on the UN Sustainable Development Goals in Brazil

Abstract

In the pandemic scenario experienced since 2020, it was observed that the problems linked to education were worsened. Brazil, which has recently achieved universal primary education, is facing historical difficulties in terms of evasion, gaps, and growing differences in student learning levels. To quantify the consequences of the pandemic on education, the World Bank used the concept of learning poverty, an idea similar to the monetary poverty line. In the Latin American region, considering the impact on education until the beginning of 2021 and the closing of schools for 10 months, it could go from 55% to 71% of the population classified as learning poor.Aiming to contribute to issues related to the learning gap, it is intended, through gamification, to develop a digital game that encompasses the goals of sustainable development of the UN (2020). In addition, it will be developed with accessibility requirements. Accessibility in digital games is established as a way to remove all barriers that cause the game's target audience to be excluded. It seeks to maintain a challenging experience, so regardless of whether the player has a disability or not, one can finish the game without outside help. Thus, the task of bringing one of the 17 sustainable development goals proved to be a problem that is also faced by educators over time: how to work with scientific knowledge in a fun way?In recent years, the digital games industry has been concerned with expanding the possibilities of accessibility, and in the same way, it is possible to see a greater interest also by the academic area in this matter since there is a greater number of studies on this subject. The general objective of this article is to analyze the criteria that will need to be developed for a game to be fully accessible. As a hypothesis, it is believed that this analysis makes it possible to perceive strengths that the digital games industry has developed in terms of accessibility features and it will still be possible to identify gaps to be explored in this field, in order to reduce the exclusion rate of people with disabilities, in digital games. As a methodology, a crossing will be made between the defaults found and principles of accessibility and usability. As result, we found that the game industry has invested a lot in resources related to the principles "Information of Easy Perception" and "Comparable Usage" of Universal Design, while still lacking resources related to the principle of "Flexible Usage". We conclude that this work will contribute to filling the gaps found related to the inclusion of all people in digital games.

Keywords: Accessibility, Digital Games, Inclusion and Diversity, Assistive Technologies, Design, Cognitive Ergonomics

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1001966