April 7, 2023
Kishonna Gray of University of Kentucky
This talk provides an exploration into the (in)accessibility of gaming technologies. Using the logic that gaming is the canary in techs coalmine, we are given a glimpse into what could go right and wrong from the innovations within gaming. Using narrative data and thematic analyses from a decade long ethnography, this work highlights tech's unlimited potentials and their insistence on inaccessibility. But also this talk also illustrates the possibilities that appear when inclusivity is at the core of design. Further, I will provide an intersectional exploration into (in)accessible gaming technologies, and morph into a discussion of inclusive design, highlighting various design approaches to increasing accessibility in gaming technologies. I consider how accessibility in technology affects marginalized users' adoption of technologies.
About the speaker:
Dr. Kishonna Gray is an Associate Professor of Writing, Rhetoric, & Digital Studies and Africana Studies at the University of Kentucky. She is also a faculty associate at the Berkman-Klein Center at Harvard University. Dr Gray is the author or co-editor of numerous books and articles including her foundational 2014 work Race, Gender, & Deviance in Xbox Live: Theoretical Perspectives from the Virtual Margins, 2018's edited collections Woke Gaming and Feminism in Play (from University of Washington press) and most recently Intersectional Tech: Black Users in Digital Gaming. She also has a book currently under contract with NYU Press entitled Black Game Studies. She's a highly sought after speaker and regularly addresses both academic and industry audiences such as at the Game Developers Conference. She is the winner of a number awards over the years including The Evelyn Gilbert Unsung Hero Award and the Blacks in Gaming Educator Award.
