Xbox Accessibility Guideline 115: Error messages and destructive actions

Goal

The goal of this Xbox Accessibility Guideline (XAG) is to ensure that players can identify and correct any player-input errors before permanent or destructive action takes place.

Overview

Player-input errors, like minor typos or accidental button activation, are quite common. The use of assistive technologies like voice input, adaptive hardware, or other factors that affect input accuracy can contribute to a higher frequency of player-input errors. Players with learning or intellectual disabilities might rearrange numbers and letters. Players with motor disabilities might press keys by mistake. This can negatively affect experiences such as creating accounts (like providing email and password information) or making purchases (for example, unintentional purchases). It might even result in a player losing progress or accidentally deleting settings and configurations. Providing the ability to reverse actions or review and correct information ensures that players have an opportunity to avoid potentially negative consequences before they occur.

Scoping questions

Assess player input in your game.

• Does your game require players to enter usernames, passwords, or other criteria-based information (like a password to sign in to a player account or a password to access a private server)?

• Does your game provide the ability to save information (like game progress or settings configurations)?

• Does your game provide opportunities for in-game purchases?

• Does your game provide experiences where players are expected to enter text into a form box (like choose your character name or choose your password)?

• Does your game allow players to perform irreversible decisions that might harm their experience if carried out accidentally, like dismantling/selling a rare inventory item or permanently dismissing an non-player character (NPC) companion?

Implementation guidelines

• If an input error is automatically detected, such as incorrectly entering a password, the error and the method to correct the error is described to the player in multiple ways (like through text or voice narration).

  Note

  Providing information that would jeopardize the security or purpose of the content is exempt from this guideline.

• Make error and warning messages easy to visually distinguish from other text on the screen.

• Visually emphasize errors and warnings where they've occurred.

• If any action the player takes will result in stored data that they control being deleted or modified in any way, provide the player an opportunity to review and correct the data or completely reverse the action before committing it.

• Offer players a mechanism to review, confirm, and undo permanent or destructive actions (for example, making an in-game purchase, selling an item, or overwriting a game save).

• Don't require button holds for confirmation of destructive actions. Provide alternate options to button holds in these scenarios.

Potential player impact

The guidelines in this XAG can help reduce barriers for the following players.

Resources and tools