Allowing players to customize their controls will go a long way towards making a product more accessible.
Input Methods
The first step for this would be to support different methods of input such as:
- Different controller types
- Mouse/keyboard
- Voice controls
- Touch controls
- Joysticks
- custom-build gaming controllers, This can be done by using generic input methods most engines will do so by default, this functions because custom-build controllers will usually send the generic input signal for each traditional controller button. Make sure multiple types of retail controllers are supported so a given custom controller is not randomly sending the inputs of one that is not supported.
- customizable retail controllers
Customize which Inputs are connected to which Action
Something commonly seen in PC games is that players can customize most or all inputs by selecting which button starts which game action.
While this is harder to do for controllers since specific actions are mapped to input types like sticks that simply behave differently than buttons there are still a number of reasonable approaches:
- Provide different control layouts
- Allow free customization between inputs that function the same way (switch which stick controls stick actions and which button controls a button action)
- Ignore the fact that some control schemes will be dysfunctional or feel bad and allow players to do what they want (make sure this does not mess with how players control/access the menus)
In general, allow players to leave actions empty, to connect multiple inputs to the same action and one input to multiple actions. Highlight each action that is affected by one or multiple of the previously mentioned situations but allow the player to use them in this state if they want to.
Sadly there is no this is exact how to do it since each game has its own actions but the goal should always be to allow the player to initialize each available game action in whatever way they want to.
Customize how Actions/Inputs are evaluated by the Game
Some actions want to be managed in different ways an example of this would be how sensitive the mouse input translates to cursor movement or camera rotation, another would be holding a key for the duration a player wants to sprint or pressing it to initialize the sprint action until the player stops moving or moves backwards.
Think about the actions in a product and consider if some of them want to manage their inputs in different ways and if yes allow players to customize in which way they would want to do so.
Platforms
Lastly offering the product on multiple platforms will allow people to have a larger variety of built-in accessibility options. Examples would be:
- PC
- Xbox
- PlayStation
- Switch
