Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A new Xbox controller to make gaming accessible to more people with disabilities

news.microsoft.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–78 of 78 posts

Re: A new Xbox controller to make gaming accessible to more people with disabilities

#71

Post by WorldMaker »

maccard wrote: post #51
jdietrich wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Accessibility is a much harder problem for the Windows and Android platforms, because they're dealing with a bigger and more open ecosystem with a lot of legacy baggage. Apple's very tight APIs make it much easier for software to be accessible by default.

I know you're talking about windows, but remember this controller is targetted at xbox, which is even more locked down than any of Apple's platforms.

This controller is targeted at gaming on both Xbox and Windows. (Because Xbox is Windows, locked down or not, and Xbox design is Windows 10 design, and all Xbox One controllers are Windows 10 controllers.)

Re: A new Xbox controller to make gaming accessible to more people with disabilities

#72

Post by opencl »

wolrah wrote: post #38
radiorental wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here, let me save you $50. It's the same principle, just a USB breakout box. But one better - capacitive input instead of just switches (of course, switches work too) https://makeymakey.com/

Except that doesn't work with an Xbox. There are definitely dozens of existing solutions for PC use, but the console world has long been protective of their gamepads and generally don't allow arbitrary custom devices to be connected unless they're built by hacking up a "certified" device. This is, to my knowledge, the first time any major console has officially supported custom input devices. It's annoying that it re…

The PS3 worked with standard USB HID gamepads out of the box. Too bad Sony dropped this support in the PS4. Oddly though Sony has allowed developers to ship their own custom USB HID drivers in PS4 games, which some fighting games have done to allow people to use their old PS3 fight sticks.

Re: A new Xbox controller to make gaming accessible to more people with disabilities

#73

Post by WorldMaker »

fredley wrote: post #10
sgtmas2006 wrote: post #4

This controller is going to be wonderful for far more than just disabled people, I can't wait to use it for more interactive possibilities.

Good products "for people with disabilities" are often just good products full stop. Take for example Good Grips[1], a brand of cookware and kitchen tools. Initially designed as specifically for the elderly and people who otherwise have trouble gripping conventional kitchen utensils, it's become a bestselling brand in its own right (I own several things) because the products are just that much more ergonomic and stur…

Some other recent HN article did an interesting presentation on the reason so many Infomercials for products seem so weird is that the only way to sell some of these products designed specifically to help the differently enabled have to be sold as if they were for particularly lazy fully capable humans. In order to try to get the product to market at all, they have to market to the weird/lazy/strange mainstream target market you see in Infomercial pitches, and often you miss that little bit of "originally built to help my elderly friends or invented to help someone after a stroke".

Re: A new Xbox controller to make gaming accessible to more people with disabilities

#74

Post by WorldMaker »

discussedbefore wrote: post #26

I recently learned two XBox controllers can function as one, an ease of access feature called Copilot. https://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-one/accessories/copilot

It's mentioned in this article, as well, because Copilot was partly built to enable someone with one of these Adaptive Controllers to keep using the Xbox controller inputs they are comfortable with and extend them with this controller for the more uncomfortable ones. Then the designers realized there are plenty of other reasons people might want to pair controllers and there was no reason not to release it as a general feature for everyone.

Re: A new Xbox controller to make gaming accessible to more people with disabilities

#75

Post by thomasfedb »

gowld wrote: post #67
thomasfedb wrote: post #6

Can we swap "disabled people" for "people with disabilities" please?

"people with disabilities" was ~1990s "people-centered-language" linguistic trend. The current trend is "disability pride", not being ashamed of being called "disabled"

That's roughly when the idea started, but I think it's untrue to say it's a trend that has been replaced. The CDC and AMA for example have policy in favour of person-first language.

There is some, perhaps splotchy, evidence that person-first language reduces stigma (e.g. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1528-1167.2008.01899.x) consistent with the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity).

Re: A new Xbox controller to make gaming accessible to more people with disabilities

#76

Post by eksemplar »

emptyfile wrote: post #32
eksemplar wrote: post #29

I find it amazing that Microsoft can be doing this sort of thing, mean while, at the windows team they decided to change that windows taskbar sound control tool so that you now need to do “start->control panel->soundoptions” to change your primary source, rather than just right clicking the damn icon. One in a long range of terrible designs for windows. How can a company simultaneously be so great and so terrible at…

Not sure what you mean, but you can change your primary audio source by clicking the right corner arrow on the little window that pops out when you click the speaker icon. EDIT: PIC https://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/img_57d... Also this literally doesn't have anything to do with the subject of this thread.

Hmm, well I guess my stuff is broken, because I only have the option to buy a headset when I do that - disabled btw.

But then, my windows still keeps turning down the brightness automatically unless I reboot after logging on the first time, so maybe it’s just a little incompatibility with my old ass laptop.

Re: A new Xbox controller to make gaming accessible to more people with disabilities

#77

Post by eksemplar »

bfrydl wrote: post #30
eksemplar wrote: post #29

I find it amazing that Microsoft can be doing this sort of thing, mean while, at the windows team they decided to change that windows taskbar sound control tool so that you now need to do “start->control panel->soundoptions” to change your primary source, rather than just right clicking the damn icon. One in a long range of terrible designs for windows. How can a company simultaneously be so great and so terrible at…

By being big.

Apple is big, their usability hasn’t gone to shit.

Re: A new Xbox controller to make gaming accessible to more people with disabilities

#78

Post by scoggs »

WorldMaker wrote: post #69
scoggs wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking how awesome it is when developers think of all sorts of players from the very start by ensuring that their entire game, game system, and controller systems are configured for full customization from the start. It's something that I think every dev, that is capable, should be striving to do in everything they can (even outside of gaming specifically) but as you indicated above it's really awesome for EV…

One of the things that Microsoft's Inclusive Design efforts have made really usefully clear is that everyone is "differently abled" circumstantially/over-the-course of a day. It's a silly example: but if I'm eating a sandwich one hand and trying to use a computer, in that moment I'm a one-handed computer user, and can benefit from many of the same one-handed benefits of someone using a computer one-handed for more pe…

True, you are right and I've never thought of it that way. We all have our strengths and weaknesses and surely without everyone being "classified" as something we are all incapable or terrible at doing certain things while we are tremendous at others. It's like the fish climbing a tree versus certain types of animals swimming. I love that saying. If you test them at what they were meant to do they'll pass with flying colors. Problem is it's impossible to classify humans in such a visual / species type of way. We are too indistinguishable.
Post reply on HN