As a game designer, and a web designer, I’ve often struggled to understand which path I should follow to create accessible content. At first I looked for actionable information, font sizes, colors, quick recipes to integrate in my workflow. That didn’t work. I felt mostly overwhelmed by the sheer complexity of the task and the amount of information available. I didn’t even have a clear understanding of what the term accessibility means.

Luckily, a few months ago I had the chance to meet on the interwebs with Will Purves and Claire Moore who both work with the Disability Network. I facilitated the digital publication of Make Accessible TTRPGs, a free intro guide to designing and running accessible games.

This booklet has been a game changer for me. It made me understand that designing in an accessible way doesn’t rely on a few quick-to-apply tricks or rules, but it starts with building a conversation with your community. Of course, ultimately a designer needs to make decisions and adopt some specific design principles. But what Will and Claire’s booklet suggests is that dialog is the core of the process. Dialog allows us to understand the needs and specificities of users, which ultimately is what we need to know as designers to produce accessible design.

As a matter of fact, and to demonstrate what we’ve been talking about, today we are releasing an updated version of the zine, after a member of the community provided feedback about some minor accessibility issues of the first PDF version.

I’d like to add that, although the zine focuses mainly on RPG design, the general method it outlines is applicable to other media and disciplines, including web design.

Make Accessible TTRPGs is totally free, so you can start your journey towards more accessible design by grabbing it here.