Does a Sonar System Make a Blind Maze Navigation Computer Game More "Fun"?
Matt Wilkerson, Amanda Koenig, James Daniel · 2010 · Proceedings of the 12th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2010) · doi:10.1145/1878803.1878886
Summary
This student research paper from the Blind Programming Project at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville presents "The Dark Labyrinth," a zombie-killing maze navigation game designed entirely for blind players. The broader project goal is to create programmable video games that allow blind children to both play computer games and learn to program — using games as a fun educational pipeline. The game objective is simple: navigate from point A to point B through a maze. Two alternative navigation systems were compared: a "Sound Maze" that uses spatial audio to literally tell the user which direction to travel (the simplest approach), and a "Sonar Maze" that uses an auditory sonar system where players "ping" walls in a particular direction using a Nintendo Wiimote button — for example, pressing the directional pad up might produce four clicks indicating four open spaces ahead. A key design decision was to never use screen readers for the interface; instead, all voice acting and menu interactions use high-quality voice recordings, and sound effects (gunshots, footsteps, zombie noises, ambiance) were crafted with the same attention to audio quality as mainstream commercial games.
Key findings
An informal evaluation at the university's Engineering Open House with 29 participants (24 videotaped, 19 male, 5 female, mostly children under 18) found no significant difference in fun ratings between the two navigation systems. The Sound Maze received a mean fun rating of 7.93 (SD=1.33) and the Sonar Maze 7.96 (SD=1.37) on a 10-point scale (t(54)=-0.10, p=0.92). Both ratings were notably high, suggesting that the overall game design and audio quality mattered far more than the specific navigation mechanism. Participants navigated very little regardless of the system, indicating the game's entertainment value came from the experience rather than efficient navigation. Useful feedback included requests for more distinct and pre-explained sound effects, the ability to aim and shoot using the Wiimote rather than just two directional buttons, and a spoken tutorial explaining controls (some participants forgot controls during play). One very young player was frightened by the loud zombie sounds, suggesting the need for age-appropriate versions.
Relevance
This paper provides an important lesson for accessible game design: production quality and engaging gameplay matter more than the sophistication of the accessibility mechanism itself. The finding that both navigation approaches were equally fun — and both highly rated — challenges the assumption that more complex, exploratory interfaces are inherently more engaging. For accessibility practitioners and game developers, the key takeaway is to invest in audio design quality (professional voice acting, rich sound effects, immersive ambiance) rather than defaulting to screen reader output, which the authors deliberately avoided. The broader Blind Programming Project's vision of creating programmable games as a pathway to teaching blind children to code represents an innovative approach to STEM accessibility education. The first version of the game was distributed to the Washington State School for the Blind, demonstrating practical deployment beyond the research lab.
Tags: game accessibility · audio game · blind users · sonification · accessible programming · auditory feedback