Designing an accessible racing
experience
My Role
Product Design, Interaction Design, Prototyping, User Research
Feature
Accessible racing and collision-awareness system
Users
Core users and players with visual impairments
Impact
Fewer collisions, faster lap times, increased driver confidence, improved player sentiment on Steam
The Challenge
Enable all players—including those with visual impairments such as blindness—to navigate the track independently while avoiding collisions and wrecks.
Our Initial Hypothesis
Collisions and wrecks were frequently cited as reasons players stopped racing. We believed automatic driving assists could help visually impaired players race alongside others while reducing the likelihood of collisions.
The idea was straightforward: when a collision was imminent, the system would intervene and help steer the player away from danger.
What We Learned
Testing challenged that assumption.
The core problem wasn't the player's ability to drive—it was their access to environmental information and feedback.
Automatic steering took too much agency away from players and made the game feel unresponsive. For example, a player could turn left, but if another driver was occupying that space, the system might prevent the car from turning as expected. Without understanding why their input wasn't producing the expected result, players became confused about what was happening around them.
We weren't solving the right problem.
The Pivot
Instead of overriding player input during critical moments, we shifted our focus to situational awareness.
The game’s API already captured car proximity data, so we leveraged that existing data to create an experience that communicated proximity through both audio and visual cues. It helped players detect small changes in distance between their car and nearby drivers, making it easier to judge gaps, reveal blind spots and overtake without crashing.
We explored how this same proximity information could support players who couldn't rely on the visual radar. By translating changes in proximity into directional audio and haptic feedback, players could understand when another car was approaching, where it was relative to them, and how quickly the distance was changing.
Rather than taking control away from the player, the system gave them more information to make their own decisions.
The Outcome
Independent playtesting showed fewer wrecks and faster lap times.
The additional proximity feedback gave players greater awareness of the cars around them, helping them better judge when to slow down, change direction, or safely overtake.
Players also reported feeling more confident pushing their cars and taking calculated risks. By adapting the information provided by the car proximity radar into accessible audio and visual cues, we could preserve the agency of the driving experience while making the surrounding environment easier to understand.
The key takeaway: accessibility didn't require us to take control away from players. It required us to give them better access to the information they needed to stay in control.