Expert Accessibility Styling Tips: November 15, 2006

This week's expert tip is what to do with all those damn buttons and sticks?

Judge Robert Florio had this to say: "Games should eliminate having to use different movements with the controllers-- for example, on console controllers there's one set of buttons (D-Pad, for example) in order to scroll through options, another stick for moving the character and a third stick for shooting and aiming. When I flip through the options with my Quad Controller, I have to constantly switch to other modes for the d-Pad, the left and right thumb sticks. Then there's aiming, shooting, looking around, selecting something from a menu...it never ends. Why don't we just have an option to do everything with the same damn thumb stick -- we could have some other way to switch the purpose of the stick as needed."

On the opposing side of things...we spoke with Tod Jones, of Peoria, Illinois who made the news recently because he had elective surgery to add extra robotic thumbs in order to game better. Jones has this to say: "Man...if we could only attach robotic thumbs with velcro or something...then we could move them around to different parts of our body so we could use the new Sony controller..."

Tod is currently undergoing psychiatric evaluation. The surgeon who performed the robotic extra thumb surgery is being investigated for malpractice. Chief spokesperson from Sony only had this to say: "What controller is he talking about???"