Deaf Accessibility

Official Microsoft Flight Simulator Wishlist
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Desperately wanting a couple small features that would make the game more accessible to Deaf folks. I appreciate that all ATC communication has a textual/visual element, and that there are subtitles available as well.

However, I would love an option for some sort of visual cue with aircraft buzzing or warning sounds. If my Cessna is buzzing, just a visual element (like warning buzzer) or the Airbus “overspeed” warning subtitled, for example. I’m not asking for a textual explanation of what the warning means, just that there is a warning sound at all. Such a small option in the accessibility menu would go a long way to making the game so much more accessible.

Thanks!

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Hi, Welcome to the forum. I think thats an excellent idea, hopefully the dev team can implement some additional accessability options down the line.

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Would be great. but I am aware we’re a minority, and we have to row what we have and not demand things. but it would be great if MS/Asobo can put this ingame.

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As far as i know there is some software which visualises sounds. Deaf people can even play shooters with that.

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add deaf sign language picture and video

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Can you please elaborate further about this wishlist?

Some background information about the reason why you want this as a wishlist could be nice. Especially when told in a very detailed description on how you came to this conclusion.

Based on your single sentence, that is identical between the topic title and the post itself, I am only receiving a very minimal amount of information from it. So based on my very limited understanding on the hearing impaired, I hope you can clear a few questions from me.

Picture: I’m struggling to understand the need to have a deaf sign language to picture. Since picture is picture, there’s no sound coming out of a picture, so I’m not sure how a sign language is beneficial to be put into a picture, since the picture itself will not have any movement. And from my limited understanding, a deaf sign language is conveyed using full motion, and not a stationary position. Which is what you will get when adding a deaf sign language to a picture.

Video: Video can benefit from deaf sign language, that’s true. But from my (again) limited understanding, I feel like deaf sign language is only useful for Live announcement videos. You know videos that are broadcasted live to be watched simultaneously by the audience. This way, having a deaf sign language in it makes sense because they need to convey the information directly to the hearing impaired at the same time. Something that closed captioning won’t be able to do in live broadcast.

However, depending on the video type, I’m also struggling to understand what kind of live broadcast about MSFS that requires deaf sign language in it. If it is just a video about people flying in the sim, there’s really no need for it. Because I’m pretty sure there’s no deaf sign language that conveys engine sounds and instruments clicks and beeps for the whole flight.

But when we’re talking about videos like developer updates, or announcements. While it’s good to have deaf sign language on them. I don’t think it’s an important matter to have it. Because they can be scripted, and can be added as a closed captioning / subtitles for the hearing impaired. It’s not really a video that everyone needs to see at the same time. Especially since we’re dealing with a global playerbase here. Even for me, watching a live stream from the developers doesn’t make a difference because they are always done at 3 AM or so where I live, so I’ll never be able to watch them live, and it’s not important enough for me to make me stay up that late to see a dev update that doesn’t really impact me that much. But when I do want to catch up, I can just rewatch the recording, and turn on the subtitle so I can understand what they’re actually saying in the video.

So I apologise for the long post and if I sound a bit unsympathetic, But I’m trying to understand your wishlist as best I can. While I would like to agree when it comes to better accessibility for everyone. It needs to be justified well enough to be warranted.

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It will not happen because it would need a lot of full motion video and they can’t spare the space on disc or the considerable memory resources it would require in game.

As a hearing impaired used though I do wish all aircraft manufacturers for the game could have subtitles for audio warnings like altitude call-outs, “minimums”, stall warning,overspeed etc

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This would make more sense from a development and usability perspective. But we would still need separate settings between hearing impaired or people who just like having subtitles.

For example, for me I like having subtitles. I mean, I understand English very well, but when I watch movies or playing MSFS, I like having subtitles because it helps me capture some words that I might have missed from someone speaking due to their accent which helps me understand the context. Without it, I always end up having to pause and rewind movies and replay it again. Something of a challenge for me when watching in the cinema if they don’t put subtitles on them. But warning sounds like overspeed, or altitude callouts and minimums are very noticeable to me, so having subtitles to display them would actually distract me.

So if we are going for a full closed captioning that can display every single sound as a text on the screen, it would require an additional setting that people can choose between No subtitle, Subtitle for speeches, and Subtitle for all sounds. But the coding platform and SDK needs to support them as well to trigger at the same time as the sounds.

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@kvardek
The thread is a few days old, but maybe bass shaker would be an alternative? Or this system?