[Accessibility-testing] Player panels

[Jason McIntosh]

All,

Sharing (with permission) the following short and ongoing exchange I began on Sunday with Mark, regarding AbleGamers’ Player Panels program. (Which I will henceforth abbreviate as “AGPP”, unless Mark objects.) If we’re gonna work with a larger field of testers, then I am strongly interested in learning more about the requirements and benefits of working with AGPP, as that seems like a potentially very on-point resource for us.

On Sun, Sep 9, 2018 at 11:06 AM Jason McIntosh <jmac at jmac.org> wrote:

> Hi Mark,
> 
> As you’ve seen, the IFTF accessibility testing team is slowly but surely coming around the bend with a plan for collecting some tasty data from volunteers. I’d like to start planning whether AbleGamers’ Player Panels program, which you’d brought to our attention earlier this year, is appropriate to call upon here, given our work’s current direction. If so, then I’d like to know more about how our team should best prepare its own materials in order to work well with AGPP volunteer testers.

[ … ]

On Sep 9, 2018, at 11:14 AM, Mark Barlet <mark at ablegamers.org> wrote:

> Jason,
> 
> To work with the player panel we need some basic things. 
> 
> - what type of player are you looking for?
> - what would you like them to do?
> - How long do they need to do it?
> - What are you paying them?
> 
> For that last point, if the number of testers is kept to a small focused group, AbleGamers will cover that cost. 

To which I replied, in part:

> - what type of player are you looking for?

In the most broad terms, players with some degree of interest in interactive fiction would be ideal. (And in improving its accessibility, but I take that as given for all PP members!)

I guess I just mean that I’d like to avoid testers who would be bored silly by the entire concept of text games, and encourage everyone else. :)

> - what would you like them to do?

We will provide the players with two short IF games to play through: one parser-based game, and one hypertext game, both constructed specifically to present accessibility challenges.

We’ll ask testers to try to get to the end of both games, and will provide “walkthrough” documents to consult in case they get stuck.

> - How long do they need to do it?

The games are both very short, and should take an hour or less each to play through. Players can take as long as they’d like with the surveys, thereafter.

> - What are you paying them?
> 
> For that last point, if the number of testers is kept to a small focused group, AbleGamers will cover that cost. 

This is a tricky one, and I’d like to know more about monetary expectations before answering! The IFTF program does have a modest discretionary budget that it could apply to rewarding testers, and we’ve brought up the potential in past discussion. But other than talk about giving everyone a token-sized Amazon gift card or something, we haven’t drawn up any solid reward plans.