2023 ED Games Expo
Unlocking Learning for All:
AbleGamers – Your Path to Inclusive Education!
Ensuring that all students have equal access to educational games is crucial for enhancing their learning experiences and engagement.
Educational games are wonderful tools to engage students and enhance learning, but if a student cannot play the game due to a disability, they cannot have the same learning experiences as their peers. If ensuring accessibility in your seems daunting, don’t worry: AbleGamers is here to help!
We offer training in accessible game design, game evaluation, playtesting with players with disabilities, consultation, and more, all meant to help your educational content reach everyone playing your game.

#SoEveryoneCanGame!
Meet our team during Ed Expo Office Hours
At AbleGamers, we believe in unlocking boundless learning opportunities through accessible educational games for all students, regardless of their abilities.
Join us during our Office Hours to learn how to revolutionize the world of educational gaming and foster inclusive learning environments!
Location: @The REACH, Level B
Date: Thursday, September 21
Time: 4pm – 6pm
Cheryl Mitchell
Cheryl Mitchell is a dedicated public policy advocate with a career spanning over two decades. Her passion lies in championing the rights and needs of disabled, elderly, and underserved individuals. She is the Director of User Research and Services at the AbleGamers Charity. In this pivotal role, she leads the User Research team and spearheads initiatives to elevate game accessibility standards. Her multifaceted responsibilities encompass client relations, business development, and account management, ensuring that accessibility remains at the forefront of game design. She collaborates closely with game producers, publishers, and designers, advocating for and driving the integration of accessible game design principles.
Steven Weitz
Steven Weitz is an artist, game designer, educator, and animator with over 20 years of experience in higher education, visual effects, feature animation, game analysis, and creation. As the Director of Professional Development at AbleGamers, he works closely with game companies, including training game developers on accessible game design to help ensure that everyone can play. In this role, Steve is continuing his lifelong passion for promoting and using media arts as a means of societal improvement.
Win an AbleGamers Swag Bag (Must be present to win!)
You want to rep AbleGamers in some really cool clothing, don’t you? We will choose 2 winners at 5:30 pm during the ED Games Expo 2023 Office Hours (September 21)!

Each Swag Bag will contain:
- Â Large (unisex) T-shirt
- Baseball Cap
- D&D Dice set
- Awesome AG Mug
Learn more about our methods:
Games are unique, requiring creative solutions to development problems. Game accessibility is no different. AbleGamers’ free Accessible Player Experiences® (APX) design patterns will help you to find accessibility barriers during development, and brainstorm solutions to those barriers that fit YOUR game. Our APX design patterns don’t require you to change anything about how you make games. Rather, they give you lenses through which you can see opportunities for accessibility at all points in the development process – from concept through completion – ensuring that you are keeping the player experience in mind from day one. Using this approach, accessibility will be baked into all aspects of your game.
Click here to learn more and start using APX today!
Want to gain a deeper understanding of how the Accessible Player Experiences ® (APX) design patterns work and how best to use them? Become a Certified APX Practitioner!
After a foundation in the importance of game accessibility, you will learn how to think about your games through the lens of the APX design patterns. This is a highly interactive training, incorporating discussions, examples, and exercises, leading to an official certification as an APX practitioner, and ultimately teaching you a design language for accessibility that can greatly speed up accessibility discussions with your team.
Learn more about our Certified APX training and sign up for a class or reach out to our Director of Professional Development, Steven Weitz, for more information!
Are you an EdTech developer or researcher striving to create the ultimate gaming experience? Look no further! At AbleGamers, we understand that the key to unraveling accessibility barriers lies in the insights of players with disabilities themselves. That’s why we’ve pioneered a unique program designed to bridge the gap between your organization and these invaluable players.
Our expert team will join forces with you to craft a compelling opportunity advertisement and broadcast it across our carefully curated community of players with disabilities who are eager to contribute to your game’s accessibility journey. We handle the heavy lifting – from recruiting the perfect candidates for your needs to handling player compensation – so you can focus on what you do best: creating an exceptional gaming experience.
Engaging with our Player Panel is your gateway to:
- Gain deep insights into the unique accessibility requirements of diverse player groups, tailored to your game’s vision.
- Conduct early reviews of wireframes, scripts, and other assets with real players who are passionate about shaping your game.
- Rigorously test your game at any stage of development, ensuring it achieves the highest levels of accessibility possible.
Join us in embracing accessibility as a driving force in EdTech gaming innovation. With AbleGamers’ Player Panel, you’ll not only meet the needs of players with disabilities but also elevate your game to new heights of inclusivity and excellence.
Ready to embark on this transformative journey?
Our team specializes in assessing the accessibility of educational technology games. Using our proprietary heuristics based on our APX design patterns, we identify and address accessibility barriers to ensure your games meet the needs of all learners.
Discover our tailored evaluations:
Accessible Prerequisite Evaluation (APRE)
We know that you want to make sure that players can play your game with controls that suit them and crisp and clear presentation of information. To help you achieve these prerequisites of accessibility, our team can conduct an APRE on your game and provide you with a report of the key barriers that will keep players out. Your studio should do an APRE if you want to:
- Identify where controls need more options to include players who need changes to remapping or precision
- Understand where information is at risk of being missed by players either because of how it is presented or the amount of information being presented
- Get a baseline of key access requirements for their game to track progress forward in accessibility
APRE Process: Our customized evaluation process will provide you with a report on Access barriers that inhibit actions players take in your games and the information they receive about the game state through a variety of modalities. For a comprehensive evaluation of both Access and Challenge barriers, explore our APLAY service!
Accessible Playthrough Evaluation (APLAY)
Empower students to conquer learning challenges. An Accessibility Playthrough (APLAY) Evaluation offers a deep dive into your educational games, identifying opportunities to enhance options and tailor challenges for effective learning. We know that you want players to experience the full range of challenges in your game. An APLAY is an assessment into the different obstacles you have in your game. The goal of the APLAY is to identify where you can increase optionality for players so that they can tune challenges and make your game just right for them.
Consider an APLAY if you want to:
- Check the pre-requisites for access that create a gateway to challenge in your game
- Identify opportunities for improved options to tune your game to make it the best experience possible for players with disabilities
- Highlight key areas of gameplay that would benefit from playtesting of accessibility options with one of our Player Panels
APLAY Process: This evaluation not only highlights potential Access barriers, it also pinpoints Challenge barriers that may affect player performance and progress. The APLAY is a great way to really get a feel for what players might find cognitively and/or emotional challenging when it comes to engaging with your game.