Interview with Sandra Uhling: “Against Homogenization and on Becoming Aware and More Sensitive Towards Human Diversity”

In this interview, Beate Ochsner and Markus Spöhrer conducted an interview with accessibility expert and human rights defender Sandra Uhling, who is the founder of GameAccessibility.de—a project that evaluates, discusses, and recommends barrier-free or ‘accidentally accessible’ mainstream games as well as accessibility guidelines and design choices. In this interview, Sandra Uhling discusses the co-relation of accessibility and usability—a pair of terms that is usually considered to be related to separate aspects of game design. Usability suggests individual configurability and adaptability that is supposed to accommodate larger groups of users with different individual demands, goals, concerns, or practices. Another important aspect of this interview is the demand for both public and economic attention to human diversity and an acceptance of such instead of attempting to homogenize a social group—namely gamers—that has never been homogeneous and never will be. Being enabled or disabled to play games, they conclude, is an individual and highly dynamic process and not necessarily a bodily deficit on one side or a technological incompatibility on the other side.