Mattel will make 80% of its games color-blind accessible by the end of the year
Welcome to Fast Company Daily, our daily newsletter on LinkedIn, featuring a free article selected each day by our editors as well as a roundup of great advice on careers, hiring, innovation, and technology.
Visit fastcompany.com for our top stories and breaking news. First time seeing this? Please subscribe.
Our email inboxes are clogged up daily with large, unnecessary images and attachments—an impact of superfast broadband and cloud storage.
A small design company produced Thanks in Advance, a website that highlights the environmental impact of our wasteful email habits. Thanks in Advance determined that the world’s email inboxes consume enough energy to light all the light bulbs across the U.S. nonstop for 28 hours. That’s small in consideration to the big issue, but every little thing adds up.
Read more about the email storage crisis on Fast Company Premium.
A Fast Company Premium subscription offers readers full access to subscriber-only stories including exclusive reporting and trend analysis on technology, business innovation, future of work, and design.
Get the details and subscribe here.
Mattel will make 80% of its games color-blind accessible by the end of the year
Mattel is making its colorful card games, like Uno, accessible to players with color blindness.
The toymaker announced this week that 80% of its global games portfolio will be color-blind accessible by the end of the year, a figure it says will reach 90% by the end of 2025.
For Uno, that means cards will have symbols in addition to colors and numbers (square for blue, circle for red, diamond for yellow, and triangle for green) so players can tell which color the card is without actually seeing the color itself. Blokus, a strategy board game, will add in patterns to differentiate colored game pieces. Mattel will also update Dos, Phase 10, Skip-Bo, and Ker Plunk by the end of the year.
Accessibility in analog games is playing catch-up to video games, which are required by law to be accessibly designed. A 2019 update to the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act mandates that video games have voice-over and electronic messaging options for players who are hard of hearing, though the World Institute on Disability says video games still have a way to go before they’re fully accessible.
“At Mattel, we are proud that our portfolio of games continues to bring people together—transcending languages and cultures—and this initiative to offer more color-blind accessible games is another proof point on our inclusivity journey,” Mattel VP and global head of games Ray Adler said in a statement.
He added that the company is proud to “make products accessible for more people, so that all fans can come together and enjoy universal gameplay.”
Mattel adapted these accessibility updates in partnership with ColorADD, a group that conducts its own online and in-person research and develops design solutions for players with color blindness. Mattel previously released an Uno Braille version of its cards and partnered with ColorADD for a color-blind version in 2017.
According to Mattel, instruction sheets for the updated games will include a section with more information specifically for color-blind players, and color-blind accessible games will feature a badge on the packaging showing a multicolored eye icon.
About 300 million people worldwide experience color blindness, according to the Cleveland Clinic. That’s a whole lot of people who might not have been able to play Uno before. Now they can get in on the game.
Global Talent Acquisition Leader / Currently @Powin 🔋🚀⚡️ / NIKE, Inc. Alumni
2w🙌
Strategic Planning | Consulting | FP&A | Project Management | Performance Management
3wTimely move, and a good call 👏🏻
OK Boštjan Dolinšek
Sr. Product Manager, PMP
3wAs someone who grew up playing Uno with a father who is red/green colorblind, can say this is a long needed upgrade! My Dad frequently had to ask for confirmation of the color of the card in play. Such a simple change to add a shape to the design can make a huge difference. Thanks, Mattel, Inc. for making the world a more accessible place!