Alessandro Canossa
Modtager af et rejselegat på 30.000 kr.
”Accessibility by Design” i undervisningen i interaktions- og spildesign: Ud over tjeklister og retningslinjer
Interaktions- og spildesign undervises i dag på universiteter verden over, både på bachelor- og kandidatniveau. Alligevel er det kun få af disse uddannelser, der tilbyder specialiseringer eller moduler med fokus på principperne for universelt design.
Alessandro Canossas projekt har til formål at udvikle et curriculum for videregående uddannelser, der identificerer barrierer og udfordringer og tilbyder løsninger for tilgængelighed. Samtidig undersøger projektet, hvordan man kan designe engagerende og meningsfulde interaktioner, der imødekommer mennesker med forskellige funktionsevner uden at kræve særlige tilgængelighedsløsninger.
For at gøre dette vil Alessandro kortlægge den aktuelle viden og praksis inden for tilgængelighed og universelt design for digitale spil gennem besøg hos kommercielle samarbejdspartnere og akademiske institutioner. På baggrund af disse erfaringer vil han udvikle et curriculum for interaktionsdesign.
Alessandro planlægger at gennemføre sin undersøgelse hos Ubisoft, Concordia University og Northeastern University fra september til oktober 2024. Han planlægger desuden at besøge RMIT fra december 2024 til januar 2025.
Se pitchen nedenfor.
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Alessandro Canossa
's undersøgelse
Alessandro er gået i gang med sin undersøgelse i USA. Nedenfor kan du læse indlæg fra hans rejse undervejs, hvor han fortæller om sine erfaringer og den indsigt, han indtil videre har opnået.
September 2024
Visits in Boston and LA
I visited Northeastern University in Boston (my sponsor was Prof. Casper Harteveld) where I held a workshop with faculty to improve the curriculum for teaching UD for interaction design and held a week-long pilot class at the master program “Game Science and Design”.
Additionally, I visited the Activision User Research facility in Los Angeles (my sponsor was Ahmad Azadvar, Game User Research specialist) where I collected the strategies for UD that Activision employs for the game franchise Call of Duty.
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Alessandro Canossa: It’s a big switch to what we’re used to
By visiting Northeastern University, Concordia University, MIT-IBM Research Lab and Ubisoft Montreal, Alessandro Canossa discovered how game design can cater to all levels of abilities.
Main findings
“Through workshops with experts and other stakeholders, I designed a curriculum lasting between one and two weeks, which included different exercises. The students will take a game and try to redesign some of the mechanics or interactions in a prototype.
By using the philosophy of Universal Design, solutions are thought from the ground up instead of the checklist approach, which is the standard in the games industry right now.”
The use of Universal Design
“With Universal Design, you are not making small changes a posteriori to comply with accessibility standards. Instead, you design systems around them in the beginning. It is a massive switch to what we're used to in the game industry.
In the future, we can use this philosophy to develop games that can automatically detect and adapt to different types of disabilities. For hearing-impaired people playing a first-person shooter game, a solution could be a red flash on the screen to indicate the direction of the sound.”
Why others should apply
“As a busy associate professor, the Bevica scholarship provided a fantastic opportunity to dig deeper into something that I would not have the time and resources for with my class.”