It has been a few days since snow covered trees decorating and standing tall upon snow capped mountains in Lake Tahoe has been the view I woke up to. I was lucky to be able to attend the first Montues event and become a part of the Epicurrence alumni and family. It was an experience like no other. It was also one that I would not have been able to have as a memory if it wasn’t for me being able to go. I’m going to elaborate more on the overall experience of being there in another post. For this post, I want to talk about what the event inspired me to do. It forced me to open up more and reach out to people more.
The last night of the event I was able to meet a Creative Director, who like me, has a disability. It was nice to be able to connect with someone who genuinely understood that it can be isolating in this industry at times. Often times, we are not included during the product design ideation process and honestly, it’s disheartening. The more I notice that products especially games and websites lack accessibility not only for physical disabilities but also mental.
Due to this, I’ve decided to work on incorporating and designing accessibility features in a few redesigns of games. I’m currently in the research stage of my project but I’m already learning more about autism and color blindness in children. I’m planning on going up to my high school ( S/O to Class of 07! Heyyyyy!) and speaking with the instructors and the students. I want to hear their stories, learn about their experiences, gain a better understanding of what their needs are and get their feedback regarding what I’m trying to do.
My goal is to incorporate options into the games or systems that do not isolate the community but bring more awareness and usability. If there’s one thing we as the disabled community do not like, it’s singling us out. We want to be included not made into the poster children for better usability practices as a cheap tactic for others to make money off of us with their products.