Recommendations for the Development of Accessible Games for People with Down Syndrome

Abstract

In Brazil, there isn’t a census which indicates the number of people with Down syndrome, but it is estimated that 270 thousand people have it (MOVIMENTO DOWN, 2012). This syndrome has several degrees of impairments, which causes intellectual and motor delays. In face of it, this team started to think in a way to help these persons to develop their abilities and quality of life. As a result, mobile games were a solution found, because as Vygotsky (1991) said, games promote the intellectual, social and moral development, and the type chosen was based on the fact that mobile is the most platform used to play nowadays. So, before solutions were projected, this research aims to create a list of accessibility recommendations for designing graphical user interfaces for games based on the people with Down Syndrome characteristics. It is important to know, that it represents the first step of the master’s thesis study and other guidelines were added to complement the guide. Therefore, an exploratory research was made to get to know the impairments that the trisomy 21 could cause. This study was based on Silveira (2012), Danielski (1999), Movimento Down (2013, 2015), Lima (2011) and Marques (2012) and established 6 recommendations for visual, auditory, speech and language, short memory, concentration and abstract thoughts difficulties. Although this list was not tested yet, because a mobile game is being created following these criterias, the team believes that they can contribute to making accessible games and the recommendations do not prejudicate the gameplay or the game design cycle of production. It just suggests some inputs on interface and configuration modes to help this and other people.