July 16, 2025 • 28 mins
Sam speaks to CEO and co-founder of Split Atom Labs, Aaron Vernon, whose game studio is the developer of accessible mobile game Land of Livia, currently available on all Apple devices for gamers who are blind or have low vision.
We also feature part three of Sam's interview with Ian Bailey, covering his time between teaching and research positions at University of Melbourne and UC Berkeley.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
S1 (00:21):
From Vision Australia. This is talking vision. And now here's
your host Sam Colley.
S2 (00:31):
Hello, everyone. It's great to be here with you. And
for the next half hour, we talk matters of blindness
and low vision.
S3 (00:39):
Our special sauce has always been the way that we
approach designing for VoiceOver. We support it at a very
in-depth level in terms of every time we're building a
gameplay feature, every time we're making an update, we're really
thinking about how do we optimize that VoiceOver experience to
minimize the number of interactions needed and get people straight
into the gameplay and rewards that they're looking for.
S2 (00:58):
Welcome to the program! This week, I catch up with
the CEO and co-founder of Split Atom Labs, Aaron Vernon,
who's put together the accessible mobile game Land of Livia,
designed for ease of access for members of the blind
and low vision community to. Jump in and have a play.
(01:21):
That conversation is coming up very shortly, so make sure
to stick around. And then after we hear from Aaron,
it's part three of my conversation with Ian Bailey as
he speaks about some groundbreaking research he undertook with Jan
Levi Kitchen. In between his time at the Kooyong Vision
(01:41):
Centre and heading off to the USA at the University
of California in Berkeley. I hope you'll enjoy this week's
episode of Talking Vision. Aaron Vernon is CEO and co
founder of Split Atom Labs, a Melbourne based gaming developer
(02:04):
which has recently launched the mobile game Land of Livia,
available on iPhone and all Apple devices. The game is
designed with accessibility at the forefront for users who are
blind or have low vision to jump in, pick up
and play a relaxing adventure, and to have a chat
(02:27):
with us all about the game. It's my great pleasure
to welcome Aaron right now. Aaron, welcome to Talking Vision.
Thank you very much for your time.
S3 (02:36):
Of course. Thank you for the invite.
S2 (02:37):
No worries at all. Now I'd love to hear more
about Split Atom Labs. Tell us all about them.
S3 (02:44):
Yeah, sure. So Split Atom Labs is based in Melbourne
and we've been incorporated for coming up on two years.
I started the company with my co-founder, Matthew, who I
met when I was working at meta over in New York,
and at that time, tech was kind of going through
a little bit of a layoff phase. There's lots of
company layoffs happening, and it was quite stressful for, I think,
(03:06):
a lot of people working in tech and being a
kind of immigrant in a foreign country. I'm like, I
don't really need the stress anymore. And so I was
thinking about like, what do I do now? Where do
I go next? And I had a game that I
started building all the way back in 2014 called Land
of Libya, and it had gained a lot of traction
with the blind and low vision community. And when I
(03:26):
looked more closely at why that was, I realized that
there was this large gap around game accessibility and specifically
game accessibility for casual games. Games you can kind of
pick up and play throughout your day. And so I
pitched that to my co-founder, and he was uh, he
also kind of agreed that there was this opportunity there.
And so we set out on this journey of how
(03:47):
do we take the early success I had with the
game in the market and grow a company around it
and really try to build a more inclusive future for
casual gamers?
S2 (03:56):
And had you had much experience in the accessibility side
of things while you were working with meta or elsewhere
in your work? But before you founded Split Atom Labs,
or was this a bit of a new world for you?
S3 (04:12):
So it actually had been building over many years my
kind of interest in this field. So when I launched
Land of Libya in 2016, it was just a game
that I wanted to exist for myself. And it was
designed to be relaxing, not have predatory microtransactions. And it
was only in 2018 that I started to get feedback
from the people in the Applevis community, which is an
(04:34):
online site that many of your listeners are probably aware of.
And they were saying like, hey, here are some suggestions
about how to make this game more accessible. And so
I started to respond to that and learn more and
more about accessibility, but also the lived experience of many
of these players that the game was attracting. And the
more I learned and the more I leveled up my
own understanding leveled up the experience in the game, the
(04:57):
more addicted I became to basically trying to learn more
and deliver more value as part of accessible games. And
so I think from that point on, I started to
immerse myself more and more into the accessibility community and
specifically the accessible tech community. I didn't have so much
of that exposure through my time at a company called
(05:17):
tubules prior to meta and then at meta. Yeah, so
I didn't have so much experience there. I saw a
lot of opportunity to apply, uh, accessible design to the
work that I was doing on the augmented reality glasses
at meta. And they've obviously since then gone and done
amazing things with meta Ray-Ban. But unfortunately, I wasn't personally
involved in those. But I am in contact with some
of the people on those projects.
S2 (05:38):
What's been the most illuminating thing for you in terms
of your experience with accessibility? What's been the most exciting
thing you've learned or been involved with?
S3 (05:50):
I think it's insightful. Maybe not so much exciting, but
definitely the insightful thing is that how complex and layered
disability and accessibility is. I think that from the outside,
it's easy to see it as a list of checkbox
items that must be done, but in reality, it's this
amalgamation of many different, thoughtful design and accessible design inclusive
(06:12):
design elements that go into building these products that then
allow a vast array of people with very unique lived
experiences to utilize them and get the most out of them.
And so I think that deeper understanding of like how
everyone's coming to these products from a different starting place
and how do we kind of meet them in the
middle to provide the best experience. That's been the most
(06:32):
eye opening part of the experience.
S2 (06:34):
Now, of course, it's time to have a chat about
the game itself. Land of Libya. Tell us about the game.
S3 (06:41):
Yeah, so it's a story driven adventure and it's designed
for relaxation. It's available on iPhone, iPad and Mac, and
it's designed to provide you a break from the real world,
a moment to unwind, step away from your busy life
and you take on quests and complete them throughout your
day to unlock the next step in the narrative, in
(07:03):
the journey and the story of the game. And so
you start off as a lonely farmhand working for an
overbearing boss, trying to figure out why has the rain
stopped in your region? And then, over time of weeks
and months of play, you get deeper into a deep
and dark conspiracy of evil that's unfolding around the land
of Libya.
S2 (07:23):
What sort of accessibility features can people look forward to
experiencing when they download Land of Libya and give it
a play?
S3 (07:33):
Yeah, absolutely. So I think first and foremost, our special
sauce has always been the way that we approach designing
for VoiceOver, the screen reader technology on on iPhones. So
we support it at a very in-depth level in terms
of every time we're building a gameplay feature, every time
we're making an update, we're really thinking about how do
we optimize that VoiceOver experience to minimize the number of
(07:54):
interactions needed and get people straight into the gameplay and
rewards that they're looking for. Um, so this includes things
like some AI driven assistance, such as equipping your best items,
automatically Dramatically directing you with one tap to the next
location you need to go to, and just minimizing the
number of taps and swipes that are needed overall. We've
(08:14):
also recently in the last, uh, well, in the big
release we did in March, we redid the entire UI
so that it supports dynamic types. So adjustable font size
right up to the top accessible font size that Apple provides.
And that's on every single screen. Uh, we've introduced the
Atkinson hyper legible font from the Braille Institute to provide
increased readability for those with low vision. It's got a
(08:36):
dark UI across the board to make it easy on
the eyes and high contrast. And we've also introduced a
lot of sound and custom built haptics to provide an
additional layer of user feedback for those that are not
able to enjoy what's shown on the screen. And I think, uh,
we're all time looking into ways to streamline the experience,
to make it so that everyone can pick it up
(08:57):
and play, even those that maybe don't consider themselves gamers.
Maybe they've never gamed before. We get a lot of
players that are in that position that come to the
game and say, hey, this is incredible. I didn't actually
think that I could game that I was a gamer.
And yet I'm enjoying this. So that's really what we
strive to provide.
S2 (09:13):
It's a wonderful experience. And in this sort of 11
year time period, and as the game has developed and
there's been no doubt years and years of processes and
changing around and all those sort of things, what have
been your sort of influences, what have been games you've
looked at and thought this works. This would go really
(09:36):
well in something that I'm building. Have you sort of
taken bits and pieces from other. What have been your
sort of favourite games over the time that you've sort
of thought that would really work? Well?
S3 (09:48):
Yeah, it's a great question. So I think any game
designer is going to tell you that the process involves
basically consuming and digesting and dissecting as many different games
as you can, and then distilling them down and extracting
them into what your vision for a game is. And
I think for me, the biggest thing that has had
an influence on me is actually World of Warcraft. So
I was a long time player slash sometimes addict. I
(10:11):
would say playing this game and I would play it
to escape the real world and immerse myself into something different,
where I felt like I had more control over my surroundings,
more autonomy, I guess in some instances. But also the
social engagement in that game was pretty incredible. And so
what I tried to do when I initially set out
to build land of Libya was distill that down into
(10:32):
how can you make it less addictive, but still have
the positive qualities of escapism and the positive qualities of
social interaction, and then provide that back to the players?
I think there are other some other games like Planescape Torment,
that had these really strong, deep narratives that made you
think about things in a maybe a unique way, in
the same way that you would get from a great
(10:53):
novel or a great movie. And that's not an avenue
that is as well explored in games. It's increasingly now
than it has been in the past, but still, I
think underutilized. And so those types of games are the
things that I found myself drawn to the most. But
then also just casual mobile games like Candy crush Merge
mansions on the mobile is another one that I play.
These are games that you can just pick up and
(11:15):
play whenever you want and get that engagement, that escape.
And so I try to kind of merge all those
together and then streamline it as much as possible to
provide kind of the most pure experience that I can.
S2 (11:25):
Fantastic. Yeah, that pick up and play kind of vibe
that's that's super important. So I think that's definitely something
a lot of people, especially these days with everyone, you know,
phones basically joined at the hip and, you know, all
that sort of thing. So people love to have a
new thing to check out on their phone. And speaking
of checking out on their phone, what's the best way
(11:47):
for them to get hold of Land of Livia on
their Apple device?
S3 (11:52):
Yeah. So the best way it does play best on
the phone, because you can kind of play it throughout
your day. So you can head you can search for
Land of Livia on the iOS App Store, The first
chapter of the game, the Prelude, is free, so you
can play that. It usually takes people around two weeks
to get through the prelude. And you know, you can see.
Do you like it? Is it engaging? Is this something
(12:14):
that you want to further invest in? And then you
can unlock the full game which gives you four additional chapters,
which takes many, many months to complete. Uh, and that
is available for 1,999 AUD at the moment.
S2 (12:27):
Are there any plans to roll out on Android in
the future, or is that a bit more tricky in
terms of different infrastructures and things, as I understand?
S3 (12:38):
Yeah, this is a great point. So I think definitely
in a lot of the marketing activities we've done, we've
seen a clear demand from people to have the game
on Android. So it's definitely something we're excited to pursue.
The challenge that we have is that in order to
provide the most accessible experience that we can, we build
everything natively. So we don't use third party game engines,
where a lot of then the fine grained accessibility can
(13:01):
sometimes be out of your control. We build it all natively,
which means that in order to bring it to Android,
we need to build it natively again, at least the
UI component of it. So it is a much bigger
lift than it would be for many other games. But
that said, it's still something that you know is pretty
high up on our list in terms of what we
want to get to next.
S2 (13:17):
Well that's exciting. We're definitely follow that with great interest.
And should it roll out on Android at some point
in the future, I'd be very happy to have you back.
And you can tell us all about the new Android build.
I've been speaking today with Aaron Vernon from Split Atom Labs,
chatting to me all about the work that Split Atom
(13:39):
Labs has done and is continuing to do in the
accessibility field, as well as Land of Livia, which is
now available on all Apple devices. Aaron, thank you so
much for your time today. It was great to catch
up with you and have a chat.
S3 (13:56):
Absolutely. Thank you very much, Sam.
S2 (14:03):
I'm Sam Corley and you're listening to Talking Vision on
Vision Australia Radio. Associated Stations of Reading Radio and the
Community Radio Network. I hope you enjoyed that conversation there
with Aaron Vernon. If you missed any part of that
conversation or you'd love to hear it again, Talking Vision
(14:24):
is available on the podcast app of your choice or
through the Vision Australia library. You can also find the
program on the Vision Australia Radio website. Simply head to
RVA radio. That's RVA radio Dot. And now please enjoy
another clip from my conversation with Ian Bailey. When we
(14:48):
last left Ian, he just resigned from his position at
the School of Optometry in Melbourne in February of 1973
and was seeking new opportunities. Let's find out what panned out.
Right now.
S4 (15:05):
On the following Monday, I had an interview with the
scheduled interview with the with the committee from the National
Health and Medical Research Council, because I had applied for
a research grant to study vision in sonar in in
age related maculopathy. And, um, I was on the short
(15:31):
list of possible recipients of a grant, and I went
to the interview. Um. And I hadn't resigned at that stage. Um,
but I resigned on the Tuesday. I'd written my resignation
letter over the, over the weekend. Um, but I didn't
hand it in until the Tuesday. Anyhow, I got the money. Um,
(15:55):
and that brought me about two and a half years of, um,
as um, research money. Um, and I was joined in
that by, um, a new graduate. Um, um, Jan Lovie. Um, um,
and she was a really bright, um, terrifically bright student, um,
(16:16):
who worked with me. And, um, we, um, went on
to conduct this research on macular degeneration and vision. Um,
and during that time, um, I, um, had I was thinking,
(16:41):
I need to do something after this research grant period
is finished. I don't want to live on soft research
money having to scrounge for research funds, um, every two, three,
four years. Um, for the rest of my life, I life.
I need to find a more stable job. Um, and
(17:02):
I applied for a job in Sydney. Um, and then,
somewhat accidentally, I found out about a job at Berkeley. Um, and, um,
even though I'd applied for the job in Sydney, I
also applied for the job at Berkeley. And I'm not
going to take you through the the convoluted.
S2 (17:22):
No. Fair enough. But.
S4 (17:25):
But but I ended up, um, um, um, choosing to
go to, um, go to Berkeley. Um, at that stage
we had two kids. Um, and when, um, we, um,
came to the United States, um, um, in at the
beginning of 1976 with our six year old and eight
(17:48):
year old children and, um, and have been here, um,
ever since. Um, when I was doing the research with
Jan um Jan Ludwik um in, in um Melbourne, um,
the patients that we use for our research were all
(18:11):
patients that we'd recruited from the Association for the blind
or from Vision Australia. I should be saying, shouldn't I?
S2 (18:18):
Or was it the association at the time? Yeah. Yeah.
S4 (18:22):
Um, and, um, and, um, it was during that period we, um,
developed the, um, the Bailey Levy chart. Um, and that chart, um,
that Jan and I put together, um, has become the
world's standard chart. You know, it's used in almost any research, um,
(18:43):
projects done in almost any country of the world. Um, um,
and that was developed out of my association for blind, um,
and Victorian College of Optometry and also the National Vision
Research Institute. Um, which which was which provided me the
space for my research. The National Vision Research Institute of
(19:07):
Australia is right beside or was sort of integrated with
the School of Optometry. Um, and so, um, then I
came to Berkeley and, um, new opportunities opened up for
me here. So that's, uh, that's a very long story, but.
S2 (19:29):
It's a fantastic but well, you know, what does it
feel like to be known as the father of Logmar,
quote unquote. And how does that how does that sit
with you over the decades where that's all sort of
came about?
S4 (19:45):
Yeah. Um, yeah, I'm proud of it. Um, it when
you look at it, it's pretty bloody simple. Um, and
everything's built on the knowledge of others. And so, you know,
we just, you know, we realize there was a problem
with the standard charts. And the thing about the the
(20:06):
charts is there's a say the, the, the vision task
is the same at all sizes. So as you go
down from the chart from the largest to the smallest, um,
as you go down, it's always the same number of letters.
The spacing relationships are all the same. The only thing
that's changing really is the size. Um, and um. And
(20:34):
that concept is so damn simple. You know, if you're
going to measure, you know, how small can you measure?
You know, what's the smallest thing you can see? You'd say, well,
whatever you're measuring, it should be, um, if you're going
to say when it's bigger, it should be bigger in
all respects. If there are three letters here, there should
(20:55):
be three letters there. Um, the task should not vary
with the size. Size should be the only variable. And
it's so Mickey Mouse sensible. Um, and when you do that, um. Um,
with that chart design, um, a lot of things about vision,
(21:23):
visual acuity, measurement improve. You get, um, a lot more reliability,
a lot more consistency. Um, you can present the chart
at a whole different range of distances. It doesn't have
to be one, um, one distance. Um, that, um, you can, um,
(21:46):
each extra letter a person gets carries the same weight.
You can score more precisely, you use a finer scale
for scoring. Um, and um, it's um, the, the principles
of that chart, um, are sort of used all around
(22:09):
the world now. And it's and, you know, I'm proud
of it, but it's, it's not all that big a
deal right now.
S2 (22:17):
It's very modest of you, you know, to say that. And, um,
you know, a lot of people have benefited greatly from
it over the decades since its inception. But yeah, it's
it's been an absolute pleasure to get your perspective on it.
Is one of the co-inventors along with Jan Lovie or
(22:39):
people may know her as Jan Lovey Kitchen. She's still, um,
quite involved with Vision Australia at various high levels. Yep.
So it's been wonderful to speak with you today, Ian.
And um, thank you very much for joining me at
this late hour. And we're both night owls, so it's
nothing out of the ordinary for us. But I do
(23:01):
thank you very much for your time today and, um,
look forward to keeping in touch and, um, corresponding further.
S4 (23:08):
Yeah, it's it's it's my pleasure, Sam. Um, and, um, if, um,
if there's anything else I can help you with, um,
any detail, what you want to know? Um, um, you know, um, I'm.
I'm always accessible.
S2 (23:26):
Yes, I think I think we'd love to have another
chat or ten. I think that's certainly in order. I
think there's a lot of things I'd love to, um,
pick your brain about, so let's definitely keep that in consideration.
S4 (23:40):
Okay, good. Well, thanks, Sam, and I hope to get
to meet you face to face sometime soon or sometime.
You know, we get to Australia about every, every year. Um, and, um, and,
you know, um, my wife and I are both in
our 80s now. I'm 84. She's 83. Um, and so, um, um,
(24:01):
we're going to stop returning to Australia after 15 years
or so, I think. Uh, um.
S2 (24:07):
We'll see.
S4 (24:08):
Um, I might try and get to see you at the,
at the at Kooyong.
S2 (24:13):
Yeah, that'd be lovely. Are you a storyteller with low
or no vision? Then this one's for you. Now, in
its 104th year, the Dickinson Memorial Literary Competition is Australia's
only braille writing competition. Proudly hosted by Braille House, it
(24:38):
invites Australians who are blind or have low vision to
showcase their creativity through original short stories, poems, opinion pieces
or song lyrics. This year's theme is discovery, a fitting
call to uncover stories, reflections, and voices that deserve to
be heard. There are six entry categories, including junior and
(25:01):
senior student levels, adult writing, and a special People's Choice Award.
The public can vote on their favorite submissions and sighted
people can enter. This unique competition provides a platform for
writers who are blind or have low vision to express
themselves and share their talent with the broader community. It
(25:23):
celebrates accessible storytelling and reinforces Braille House's commitment to literacy,
inclusion and creative empowerment. With cash prizes of up to
$350 per category. It's also a meaningful way to reward
creativity and inspire new voices. Submissions can be in hard copy, braille, word, documents,
(25:49):
Symbol or Duxbury readable files. Entries close Friday, the 19th
of September, 2025 at 4 p.m.. It's open to all
eligible Australian residents who are legally blind or have low vision.
But the People's Choice category is open to all. The
entry fee is $10 per submission. For more information, contact
(26:14):
Braille House for entry form and more details by emailing
admin at. That's admin. Or you can give them a
ring on 07Â 3848Â 5257. That's 07Â 3848Â 5257 or head to the website
(26:42):
at Braille House. That's Braille house. house.org dot. And that's
all the time we have for today. You've been listening
to Talking Vision. Talking vision is a Vision Australia radio production.
Thanks to all involved with putting the show together every week.
(27:04):
And remember, we love hearing from you. So please get
in touch anytime on our email at Talking at Vision Australia.
That's talking vision all. One word at Vision Australia dot.
But until next week it's Sam Corley saying bye for now.
S1 (27:25):
You can contact Vision Australia by phoning us anytime during
business hours on one 384 746. That's one 384 746
or by visiting Vision Australia. That's Vision Australia.
From Vision Australia. This is talking vision. And now here's
your host Sam Colley.
S2 (00:31):
Hello, everyone. It's great to be here with you. And
for the next half hour, we talk matters of blindness
and low vision.
S3 (00:39):
Our special sauce has always been the way that we
approach designing for VoiceOver. We support it at a very
in-depth level in terms of every time we're building a
gameplay feature, every time we're making an update, we're really
thinking about how do we optimize that VoiceOver experience to
minimize the number of interactions needed and get people straight
into the gameplay and rewards that they're looking for.
S2 (00:58):
Welcome to the program! This week, I catch up with
the CEO and co-founder of Split Atom Labs, Aaron Vernon,
who's put together the accessible mobile game Land of Livia,
designed for ease of access for members of the blind
and low vision community to. Jump in and have a play.
(01:21):
That conversation is coming up very shortly, so make sure
to stick around. And then after we hear from Aaron,
it's part three of my conversation with Ian Bailey as
he speaks about some groundbreaking research he undertook with Jan
Levi Kitchen. In between his time at the Kooyong Vision
(01:41):
Centre and heading off to the USA at the University
of California in Berkeley. I hope you'll enjoy this week's
episode of Talking Vision. Aaron Vernon is CEO and co
founder of Split Atom Labs, a Melbourne based gaming developer
(02:04):
which has recently launched the mobile game Land of Livia,
available on iPhone and all Apple devices. The game is
designed with accessibility at the forefront for users who are
blind or have low vision to jump in, pick up
and play a relaxing adventure, and to have a chat
(02:27):
with us all about the game. It's my great pleasure
to welcome Aaron right now. Aaron, welcome to Talking Vision.
Thank you very much for your time.
S3 (02:36):
Of course. Thank you for the invite.
S2 (02:37):
No worries at all. Now I'd love to hear more
about Split Atom Labs. Tell us all about them.
S3 (02:44):
Yeah, sure. So Split Atom Labs is based in Melbourne
and we've been incorporated for coming up on two years.
I started the company with my co-founder, Matthew, who I
met when I was working at meta over in New York,
and at that time, tech was kind of going through
a little bit of a layoff phase. There's lots of
company layoffs happening, and it was quite stressful for, I think,
(03:06):
a lot of people working in tech and being a
kind of immigrant in a foreign country. I'm like, I
don't really need the stress anymore. And so I was
thinking about like, what do I do now? Where do
I go next? And I had a game that I
started building all the way back in 2014 called Land
of Libya, and it had gained a lot of traction
with the blind and low vision community. And when I
(03:26):
looked more closely at why that was, I realized that
there was this large gap around game accessibility and specifically
game accessibility for casual games. Games you can kind of
pick up and play throughout your day. And so I
pitched that to my co-founder, and he was uh, he
also kind of agreed that there was this opportunity there.
And so we set out on this journey of how
(03:47):
do we take the early success I had with the
game in the market and grow a company around it
and really try to build a more inclusive future for
casual gamers?
S2 (03:56):
And had you had much experience in the accessibility side
of things while you were working with meta or elsewhere
in your work? But before you founded Split Atom Labs,
or was this a bit of a new world for you?
S3 (04:12):
So it actually had been building over many years my
kind of interest in this field. So when I launched
Land of Libya in 2016, it was just a game
that I wanted to exist for myself. And it was
designed to be relaxing, not have predatory microtransactions. And it
was only in 2018 that I started to get feedback
from the people in the Applevis community, which is an
(04:34):
online site that many of your listeners are probably aware of.
And they were saying like, hey, here are some suggestions
about how to make this game more accessible. And so
I started to respond to that and learn more and
more about accessibility, but also the lived experience of many
of these players that the game was attracting. And the
more I learned and the more I leveled up my
own understanding leveled up the experience in the game, the
(04:57):
more addicted I became to basically trying to learn more
and deliver more value as part of accessible games. And
so I think from that point on, I started to
immerse myself more and more into the accessibility community and
specifically the accessible tech community. I didn't have so much
of that exposure through my time at a company called
(05:17):
tubules prior to meta and then at meta. Yeah, so
I didn't have so much experience there. I saw a
lot of opportunity to apply, uh, accessible design to the
work that I was doing on the augmented reality glasses
at meta. And they've obviously since then gone and done
amazing things with meta Ray-Ban. But unfortunately, I wasn't personally
involved in those. But I am in contact with some
of the people on those projects.
S2 (05:38):
What's been the most illuminating thing for you in terms
of your experience with accessibility? What's been the most exciting
thing you've learned or been involved with?
S3 (05:50):
I think it's insightful. Maybe not so much exciting, but
definitely the insightful thing is that how complex and layered
disability and accessibility is. I think that from the outside,
it's easy to see it as a list of checkbox
items that must be done, but in reality, it's this
amalgamation of many different, thoughtful design and accessible design inclusive
(06:12):
design elements that go into building these products that then
allow a vast array of people with very unique lived
experiences to utilize them and get the most out of them.
And so I think that deeper understanding of like how
everyone's coming to these products from a different starting place
and how do we kind of meet them in the
middle to provide the best experience. That's been the most
(06:32):
eye opening part of the experience.
S2 (06:34):
Now, of course, it's time to have a chat about
the game itself. Land of Libya. Tell us about the game.
S3 (06:41):
Yeah, so it's a story driven adventure and it's designed
for relaxation. It's available on iPhone, iPad and Mac, and
it's designed to provide you a break from the real world,
a moment to unwind, step away from your busy life
and you take on quests and complete them throughout your
day to unlock the next step in the narrative, in
(07:03):
the journey and the story of the game. And so
you start off as a lonely farmhand working for an
overbearing boss, trying to figure out why has the rain
stopped in your region? And then, over time of weeks
and months of play, you get deeper into a deep
and dark conspiracy of evil that's unfolding around the land
of Libya.
S2 (07:23):
What sort of accessibility features can people look forward to
experiencing when they download Land of Libya and give it
a play?
S3 (07:33):
Yeah, absolutely. So I think first and foremost, our special
sauce has always been the way that we approach designing
for VoiceOver, the screen reader technology on on iPhones. So
we support it at a very in-depth level in terms
of every time we're building a gameplay feature, every time
we're making an update, we're really thinking about how do
we optimize that VoiceOver experience to minimize the number of
(07:54):
interactions needed and get people straight into the gameplay and
rewards that they're looking for. Um, so this includes things
like some AI driven assistance, such as equipping your best items,
automatically Dramatically directing you with one tap to the next
location you need to go to, and just minimizing the
number of taps and swipes that are needed overall. We've
(08:14):
also recently in the last, uh, well, in the big
release we did in March, we redid the entire UI
so that it supports dynamic types. So adjustable font size
right up to the top accessible font size that Apple provides.
And that's on every single screen. Uh, we've introduced the
Atkinson hyper legible font from the Braille Institute to provide
increased readability for those with low vision. It's got a
(08:36):
dark UI across the board to make it easy on
the eyes and high contrast. And we've also introduced a
lot of sound and custom built haptics to provide an
additional layer of user feedback for those that are not
able to enjoy what's shown on the screen. And I think, uh,
we're all time looking into ways to streamline the experience,
to make it so that everyone can pick it up
(08:57):
and play, even those that maybe don't consider themselves gamers.
Maybe they've never gamed before. We get a lot of
players that are in that position that come to the
game and say, hey, this is incredible. I didn't actually
think that I could game that I was a gamer.
And yet I'm enjoying this. So that's really what we
strive to provide.
S2 (09:13):
It's a wonderful experience. And in this sort of 11
year time period, and as the game has developed and
there's been no doubt years and years of processes and
changing around and all those sort of things, what have
been your sort of influences, what have been games you've
looked at and thought this works. This would go really
(09:36):
well in something that I'm building. Have you sort of
taken bits and pieces from other. What have been your
sort of favourite games over the time that you've sort
of thought that would really work? Well?
S3 (09:48):
Yeah, it's a great question. So I think any game
designer is going to tell you that the process involves
basically consuming and digesting and dissecting as many different games
as you can, and then distilling them down and extracting
them into what your vision for a game is. And
I think for me, the biggest thing that has had
an influence on me is actually World of Warcraft. So
I was a long time player slash sometimes addict. I
(10:11):
would say playing this game and I would play it
to escape the real world and immerse myself into something different,
where I felt like I had more control over my surroundings,
more autonomy, I guess in some instances. But also the
social engagement in that game was pretty incredible. And so
what I tried to do when I initially set out
to build land of Libya was distill that down into
(10:32):
how can you make it less addictive, but still have
the positive qualities of escapism and the positive qualities of
social interaction, and then provide that back to the players?
I think there are other some other games like Planescape Torment,
that had these really strong, deep narratives that made you
think about things in a maybe a unique way, in
the same way that you would get from a great
(10:53):
novel or a great movie. And that's not an avenue
that is as well explored in games. It's increasingly now
than it has been in the past, but still, I
think underutilized. And so those types of games are the
things that I found myself drawn to the most. But
then also just casual mobile games like Candy crush Merge
mansions on the mobile is another one that I play.
These are games that you can just pick up and
(11:15):
play whenever you want and get that engagement, that escape.
And so I try to kind of merge all those
together and then streamline it as much as possible to
provide kind of the most pure experience that I can.
S2 (11:25):
Fantastic. Yeah, that pick up and play kind of vibe
that's that's super important. So I think that's definitely something
a lot of people, especially these days with everyone, you know,
phones basically joined at the hip and, you know, all
that sort of thing. So people love to have a
new thing to check out on their phone. And speaking
of checking out on their phone, what's the best way
(11:47):
for them to get hold of Land of Livia on
their Apple device?
S3 (11:52):
Yeah. So the best way it does play best on
the phone, because you can kind of play it throughout
your day. So you can head you can search for
Land of Livia on the iOS App Store, The first
chapter of the game, the Prelude, is free, so you
can play that. It usually takes people around two weeks
to get through the prelude. And you know, you can see.
Do you like it? Is it engaging? Is this something
(12:14):
that you want to further invest in? And then you
can unlock the full game which gives you four additional chapters,
which takes many, many months to complete. Uh, and that
is available for 1,999 AUD at the moment.
S2 (12:27):
Are there any plans to roll out on Android in
the future, or is that a bit more tricky in
terms of different infrastructures and things, as I understand?
S3 (12:38):
Yeah, this is a great point. So I think definitely
in a lot of the marketing activities we've done, we've
seen a clear demand from people to have the game
on Android. So it's definitely something we're excited to pursue.
The challenge that we have is that in order to
provide the most accessible experience that we can, we build
everything natively. So we don't use third party game engines,
where a lot of then the fine grained accessibility can
(13:01):
sometimes be out of your control. We build it all natively,
which means that in order to bring it to Android,
we need to build it natively again, at least the
UI component of it. So it is a much bigger
lift than it would be for many other games. But
that said, it's still something that you know is pretty
high up on our list in terms of what we
want to get to next.
S2 (13:17):
Well that's exciting. We're definitely follow that with great interest.
And should it roll out on Android at some point
in the future, I'd be very happy to have you back.
And you can tell us all about the new Android build.
I've been speaking today with Aaron Vernon from Split Atom Labs,
chatting to me all about the work that Split Atom
(13:39):
Labs has done and is continuing to do in the
accessibility field, as well as Land of Livia, which is
now available on all Apple devices. Aaron, thank you so
much for your time today. It was great to catch
up with you and have a chat.
S3 (13:56):
Absolutely. Thank you very much, Sam.
S2 (14:03):
I'm Sam Corley and you're listening to Talking Vision on
Vision Australia Radio. Associated Stations of Reading Radio and the
Community Radio Network. I hope you enjoyed that conversation there
with Aaron Vernon. If you missed any part of that
conversation or you'd love to hear it again, Talking Vision
(14:24):
is available on the podcast app of your choice or
through the Vision Australia library. You can also find the
program on the Vision Australia Radio website. Simply head to
RVA radio. That's RVA radio Dot. And now please enjoy
another clip from my conversation with Ian Bailey. When we
(14:48):
last left Ian, he just resigned from his position at
the School of Optometry in Melbourne in February of 1973
and was seeking new opportunities. Let's find out what panned out.
Right now.
S4 (15:05):
On the following Monday, I had an interview with the
scheduled interview with the with the committee from the National
Health and Medical Research Council, because I had applied for
a research grant to study vision in sonar in in
age related maculopathy. And, um, I was on the short
(15:31):
list of possible recipients of a grant, and I went
to the interview. Um. And I hadn't resigned at that stage. Um,
but I resigned on the Tuesday. I'd written my resignation
letter over the, over the weekend. Um, but I didn't
hand it in until the Tuesday. Anyhow, I got the money. Um,
(15:55):
and that brought me about two and a half years of, um,
as um, research money. Um, and I was joined in
that by, um, a new graduate. Um, um, Jan Lovie. Um, um,
and she was a really bright, um, terrifically bright student, um,
(16:16):
who worked with me. And, um, we, um, went on
to conduct this research on macular degeneration and vision. Um,
and during that time, um, I, um, had I was thinking,
(16:41):
I need to do something after this research grant period
is finished. I don't want to live on soft research
money having to scrounge for research funds, um, every two, three,
four years. Um, for the rest of my life, I life.
I need to find a more stable job. Um, and
(17:02):
I applied for a job in Sydney. Um, and then,
somewhat accidentally, I found out about a job at Berkeley. Um, and, um,
even though I'd applied for the job in Sydney, I
also applied for the job at Berkeley. And I'm not
going to take you through the the convoluted.
S2 (17:22):
No. Fair enough. But.
S4 (17:25):
But but I ended up, um, um, um, choosing to
go to, um, go to Berkeley. Um, at that stage
we had two kids. Um, and when, um, we, um,
came to the United States, um, um, in at the
beginning of 1976 with our six year old and eight
(17:48):
year old children and, um, and have been here, um,
ever since. Um, when I was doing the research with
Jan um Jan Ludwik um in, in um Melbourne, um,
the patients that we use for our research were all
(18:11):
patients that we'd recruited from the Association for the blind
or from Vision Australia. I should be saying, shouldn't I?
S2 (18:18):
Or was it the association at the time? Yeah. Yeah.
S4 (18:22):
Um, and, um, and, um, it was during that period we, um,
developed the, um, the Bailey Levy chart. Um, and that chart, um,
that Jan and I put together, um, has become the
world's standard chart. You know, it's used in almost any research, um,
(18:43):
projects done in almost any country of the world. Um, um,
and that was developed out of my association for blind, um,
and Victorian College of Optometry and also the National Vision
Research Institute. Um, which which was which provided me the
space for my research. The National Vision Research Institute of
(19:07):
Australia is right beside or was sort of integrated with
the School of Optometry. Um, and so, um, then I
came to Berkeley and, um, new opportunities opened up for
me here. So that's, uh, that's a very long story, but.
S2 (19:29):
It's a fantastic but well, you know, what does it
feel like to be known as the father of Logmar,
quote unquote. And how does that how does that sit
with you over the decades where that's all sort of
came about?
S4 (19:45):
Yeah. Um, yeah, I'm proud of it. Um, it when
you look at it, it's pretty bloody simple. Um, and
everything's built on the knowledge of others. And so, you know,
we just, you know, we realize there was a problem
with the standard charts. And the thing about the the
(20:06):
charts is there's a say the, the, the vision task
is the same at all sizes. So as you go
down from the chart from the largest to the smallest, um,
as you go down, it's always the same number of letters.
The spacing relationships are all the same. The only thing
that's changing really is the size. Um, and um. And
(20:34):
that concept is so damn simple. You know, if you're
going to measure, you know, how small can you measure?
You know, what's the smallest thing you can see? You'd say, well,
whatever you're measuring, it should be, um, if you're going
to say when it's bigger, it should be bigger in
all respects. If there are three letters here, there should
(20:55):
be three letters there. Um, the task should not vary
with the size. Size should be the only variable. And
it's so Mickey Mouse sensible. Um, and when you do that, um. Um,
with that chart design, um, a lot of things about vision,
(21:23):
visual acuity, measurement improve. You get, um, a lot more reliability,
a lot more consistency. Um, you can present the chart
at a whole different range of distances. It doesn't have
to be one, um, one distance. Um, that, um, you can, um,
(21:46):
each extra letter a person gets carries the same weight.
You can score more precisely, you use a finer scale
for scoring. Um, and um, it's um, the, the principles
of that chart, um, are sort of used all around
(22:09):
the world now. And it's and, you know, I'm proud
of it, but it's, it's not all that big a
deal right now.
S2 (22:17):
It's very modest of you, you know, to say that. And, um,
you know, a lot of people have benefited greatly from
it over the decades since its inception. But yeah, it's
it's been an absolute pleasure to get your perspective on it.
Is one of the co-inventors along with Jan Lovie or
(22:39):
people may know her as Jan Lovey Kitchen. She's still, um,
quite involved with Vision Australia at various high levels. Yep.
So it's been wonderful to speak with you today, Ian.
And um, thank you very much for joining me at
this late hour. And we're both night owls, so it's
nothing out of the ordinary for us. But I do
(23:01):
thank you very much for your time today and, um,
look forward to keeping in touch and, um, corresponding further.
S4 (23:08):
Yeah, it's it's it's my pleasure, Sam. Um, and, um, if, um,
if there's anything else I can help you with, um,
any detail, what you want to know? Um, um, you know, um, I'm.
I'm always accessible.
S2 (23:26):
Yes, I think I think we'd love to have another
chat or ten. I think that's certainly in order. I
think there's a lot of things I'd love to, um,
pick your brain about, so let's definitely keep that in consideration.
S4 (23:40):
Okay, good. Well, thanks, Sam, and I hope to get
to meet you face to face sometime soon or sometime.
You know, we get to Australia about every, every year. Um, and, um, and,
you know, um, my wife and I are both in
our 80s now. I'm 84. She's 83. Um, and so, um, um,
(24:01):
we're going to stop returning to Australia after 15 years
or so, I think. Uh, um.
S2 (24:07):
We'll see.
S4 (24:08):
Um, I might try and get to see you at the,
at the at Kooyong.
S2 (24:13):
Yeah, that'd be lovely. Are you a storyteller with low
or no vision? Then this one's for you. Now, in
its 104th year, the Dickinson Memorial Literary Competition is Australia's
only braille writing competition. Proudly hosted by Braille House, it
(24:38):
invites Australians who are blind or have low vision to
showcase their creativity through original short stories, poems, opinion pieces
or song lyrics. This year's theme is discovery, a fitting
call to uncover stories, reflections, and voices that deserve to
be heard. There are six entry categories, including junior and
(25:01):
senior student levels, adult writing, and a special People's Choice Award.
The public can vote on their favorite submissions and sighted
people can enter. This unique competition provides a platform for
writers who are blind or have low vision to express
themselves and share their talent with the broader community. It
(25:23):
celebrates accessible storytelling and reinforces Braille House's commitment to literacy,
inclusion and creative empowerment. With cash prizes of up to
$350 per category. It's also a meaningful way to reward
creativity and inspire new voices. Submissions can be in hard copy, braille, word, documents,
(25:49):
Symbol or Duxbury readable files. Entries close Friday, the 19th
of September, 2025 at 4 p.m.. It's open to all
eligible Australian residents who are legally blind or have low vision.
But the People's Choice category is open to all. The
entry fee is $10 per submission. For more information, contact
(26:14):
Braille House for entry form and more details by emailing
admin at. That's admin. Or you can give them a
ring on 07Â 3848Â 5257. That's 07Â 3848Â 5257 or head to the website
(26:42):
at Braille House. That's Braille house. house.org dot. And that's
all the time we have for today. You've been listening
to Talking Vision. Talking vision is a Vision Australia radio production.
Thanks to all involved with putting the show together every week.
(27:04):
And remember, we love hearing from you. So please get
in touch anytime on our email at Talking at Vision Australia.
That's talking vision all. One word at Vision Australia dot.
But until next week it's Sam Corley saying bye for now.
S1 (27:25):
You can contact Vision Australia by phoning us anytime during
business hours on one 384 746. That's one 384 746
or by visiting Vision Australia. That's Vision Australia.
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