Xbox Celebrates the Disability Community

We are honored to celebrate our remarkable disability community. We join you as part of this community and we have dedicated our careers to the pursuit of making gaming accessible and joyful for all. Having deeply invested our focus into making gaming across all platforms as inclusive as possible, we believe it all begins with education and connection.

As members of the disability community, we prioritize internal education within Xbox and Microsoft to create clarity on what a commitment to the disability community really means for each member of the team. We bring in teachers and expert speakers to help the team better understand why this work is so crucial to the community who relies on it. Examples of these education opportunities include an introduction to deaf culture workshop and offering courses that teach American sign language (ASL) to name a few. We have seen the impact of this type of internal education, offering practical advice on how to become even better allies to our colleagues in the workplace who have disabilities, seen and unseen.

Education lies at the root of all understanding, and it is tied to our ambition to make gaming at Microsoft a truly welcoming and joyful place to work for people with disabilities. We are committed to attracting and hiring more people from the disability community. They not only bring the right skills but also provide lived experiences that help us make the most inclusive environment for our players.

Another critical part of our work is creating safe spaces where people can feel free to be their authentic selves, they can come as they are and be with others who don’t just empathize but understand.  We have organized game nights, movie nights and coffee chats to help bring everyone together for support and friendship. These connections are crucial, especially after the past year when so many have felt isolated.

Our focus on these areas of education and connection translates into making positive changes in our products and how external audiences engage with Xbox. We continually come back to our guiding principle: If you don’t intentionally include, you unintentionally exclude. It is with this focus that we continue our work to provide connection and joy for the disability community, and for all gamers.

Please join Xbox and Microsoft Gaming as we celebrate and support the disability community. Here are some of ways we will be celebrating and raising awareness during the month of October and beyond.

Source: Xbox Wire.