Using the Kinect in a Wheelchair

About a week ago the wife and I went out and bought ourselves an Kinect. I figured that Microsoft would think ahead and program the Kinect in such a way that wheelchair users like myself wouldn’t have too difficult a time using the device (though I did expect some difficulties). Here’s a breakdown of my experience.

The Kinect Hub

When initializing the Kinect by waving at it and navigating the Kinect Hub using the “previous” and “next” arrows, I had absolutely no problem being recognized by the Kinect. It clearly identified my face, hands, and lower body and was able to accurately track my movements as I navigated between the different screens.

Kinect ID

The Kinect has this really neat feature called Kinect ID that allows you to stand in front of the Kinect and have it automatically recognize you via the built-in camera system. In order for the Kinect to know what you look like, you have to move about your living room striking various poses while it scans your face and body and associates it with your Xbox Live profile. Now, obviously the system assumes you’re standing up as you follow the directions on the screen. If, like me, you’re sitting in a wheelchair, the system can still track and recognize you, but the avatar on screen it uses to show you what it sees will appear severely deformed (my virtual legs were splayed beneath me as if I’d been hit by some sort of online semi). Despite the incorrect avatar display, the system can still recognize the gestures you’re doing (very few of them involve the use of your legs) and will still be able to accurately identify you in your wheelchair (or any chair for that matter) when it comes time to login.

For my initial experience with the Kinect, I played two games: Kinect Adventures and Kinect Sports. When playing both games, I ran into severe playability issues while trying to play sitting in my wheelchair. For example, when playing Kinect Sports, the game stated that I need to put my hand over my head to begin playing. Despite the screen clearly showing my avatar standing up with his hand over his head, the game wouldn’t acknowledge my gesture. Here’s the reason (from what I can tell): In order for the game to figure out which person in the room is trying to get the camera’s attention, it looks for the player who is clearly standing with his/her hand over their head. In the Kinect’s eyes, I was clearly sitting and the game would not accept my half-assed attempt at what was meant to be a rather physical game.

To remedy the situation, I tried everything from adjusting the height of the Kinect camera to sitting in a really tall office chair; nothing worked. Finally, I got out of my chair, stood on my knees and BINGO! The game started recognizing my gesture…and shrunk my avatar down to the size of one of the Seven Dwarves. The solution is pretty simple: stand on your knees with your legs straight behind you and the camera thinks your knee-caps are your feet and that you’re “standing up”.

Now, I know this solution isn’t ideal for a lot of wheelchair gamers out their but it’s at least a decent “hack” until game developers start taking wheelchair users into consideration when designing Kinect games.

Final Thoughts

While doing research on wheelchair gamers and the Kinect, I ran across a lot of forum posts that tried to say that Microsoft and other game developer can’t be expected to make Kinect games accessible to wheelchair gamers given the rather active nature of the Kinect itself. While I understand the logic behind that sentiment, I have to disagree.

For as long as I remember, video games have always a very welcoming and accessible medium for gamers with disabilities. Even as a kid, despite all the activities I could’t join in with my peers, I knew that the minute someone handed me a controller, I was an equal. No matter what my friends were into, I always knew I could come over and “play video games”. With the Kinect and other motion-based systems being touted as the future of gaming, I have a deep concern that what was once an open and accessible medium will soon become inaccessible to a sizable portion of the gaming community. And while I don’t expect every Kinect game to be fully accessible, I do expect game developers to stop and think about all the different gaming communities that their software will impact.