Now We're Getting Somewhere – A First Prototype for a Co-Designed, Blind-accessible Auditory Navigation Toolkit for 3D Open-World Video Game Environments

Child L, Ford N. Now We're Getting Somewhere – A First Prototype for a Co-Designed, Blind-accessible Auditory Navigation Toolkit for 3D Open-World Video Game Environments. In: AVARIG 2026: Audio for Virtual and Augmented Reality and Immersive Games. Audio Engineering Society; 2026. Paper 499. Available from: https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=23346

@inproceedings{Child2026_23346,
  author = {Child, Luke and Ford, Natanya},
  title = {{Now We're Getting Somewhere – A First Prototype for a Co-Designed, Blind-accessible Auditory Navigation Toolkit for 3D Open-World Video Game Environments}},
  booktitle = {AVARIG 2026: Audio for Virtual and Augmented Reality and Immersive Games},
  note = {Paper 499},
  year = {2026},
  month = jun,
  publisher = {Audio Engineering Society},
  url = {https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=23346}
}

TY  - CPAPER
TI  - Now We're Getting Somewhere – A First Prototype for a Co-Designed, Blind-accessible Auditory Navigation Toolkit for 3D Open-World Video Game Environments
AU  - Child, Luke
AU  - Ford, Natanya
T2  - AVARIG 2026: Audio for Virtual and Augmented Reality and Immersive Games
M1  - Paper 499
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/06/30
UR  - https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=23346
PB  - Audio Engineering Society
LA  - en
AB  - Navigation tasks are often used as a fun and engaging method of exploring and interacting with video game environments. 3D open-world games afford curiosity-driven navigation for players, providing opportunities to follow their agency and interact with points of interest within an environment. However, this is commonly a visually-motivated task that is seldom accessible to Blind and Low Vision (BLV) gamers. Given the impact of this barrier, it is imperative to design navigation systems for games that are driven by auditory information to provide equal opportunities for BLV gamers to engage with open world game environments. There is a noted lack of understanding from game developers currently that evidences the need for dialogue between researchers, BLV gamers and developers. In collaboration with both BLV gamers and developers, we present the early, first co-designed prototypes for a customisable, Blind-accessible auditory navigation toolkit in 3D open-world video game environments. We build on a series of dialogic discussions with Disabled gamers who have experienced barriers in their gameplay experiences and preset three navigation tools. We document the design of these tools and present theme explorations from analysis both each co-design phases. We present discussions on including player agency, action precision, gameplay fluidity and cognitive load, categorisation and identification, sound preference, and tutorialisation and learnability. From these themes, we derive design insights that highlight the barriers and considerations for auditory navigation in video games.
ER  -