Xiaochun Zhang, University College London

Advancing Game Accessibility for Visually Impaired Players through Audio Description

Xiaochun Zhang

Dr Xiaochun Zhang is a Lecturer in Translation Studies at the University College London (UCL), United Kingdom. Her research interests lie primarily in video game localisation and accessibility, fan audiovisual translation, and language technology. She is the principal investigator of the AD4Games and TransAD4Games projects, which investigate the application of audio description in video games to improve accessibility. She is the co-founder and co-director of the Bristol Digital Game Lab.

ORCID: 0000-0001-6334-6525

Panelists at the game localization roundtable

Federico Franzoni

Federico Franzoni started his journey in game localization in 2007, as an Italian Language Tester at Electronic Arts. Since then, he has held various roles in the industry, as testing coordinator, localization project manager, freelance linguist, vendor manager and product owner. He is co-founder and co-director of Loki, a gameloc boutique agency active since 2015, where he is in charge of recruitment, strategic supplier management and technical development. He still translates, proofreads, tests and plays whenever he has a chance.

Paula Salguero

Paula Salguero Soto is a video game localization specialist. She completed the Audiovisual Translation master degree of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in 2022 and, since then, she has been working as an English into Spanish video game localization professional. At the moment, she is part of the internal team of linguists of Keywords Studios Spain. Her experience includes working on high-profile titles for renowned clients such as Nintendo, CCP Games, and many more.

Elena Hernández García

Elena Hernández is a freelance game localizer and interpreter whose working languages are English, Spanish, Catalan and Japanese. She is also a lecturer at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, where she teaches Japanese language and game localization. She has worked on several titles ranging from small indie games to triple A games.