Native Steam Input support for adaptive controllers could be helpful

why only big picture mode? why couldnt it be put in the settings outside of big picture...

are we supposed to go into big picture to change said settings..... do they even work outside of big picture mode?

The ability to modify the ui sounds via an independent volume slider or even the kind of sounds the ui makes would be nice. It gets VERY grating on sensitive ears

Please also add this feature to the Normal Mode

Add this in normal mode.

Many games are effectively unplayable for people with disabilities that affect mobility, dexterity, or fine motor control. While some titles offer limited accessibility through mouse-only input, the overwhelming majority of the Steam catalog assumes the use of a keyboard or game controller—both of which can be major barriers for disabled players. Assistive technologies and adaptive peripherals do exist, but they’re often expensive, rare, or incompatible with modern games. Accessibility shouldn’t be a luxury reserved for those who can afford specialized gear; it should be a design principle integrated from the start. The industry can do better, and many of us are waiting for it to catch up.

Hello. I'm literaly half-deaf (doctors haven't put a decent name to my condition): I can hear with one of my ears, but not with the other one (I born this way), which condemns me to never know really what is Stereo Sound and sort of. The true problem is: nowadays majority of sound creations have stereo and other atmospheric effects, and because of this, I literally can not hear the whole sound part of the creations. Windows 11 has a tool to remix to monoaural, but it doesn't work good enough, and I've spotted a lot of sound effects and even song parts in right ear but nor in left, or viceversa. If you could make (or suggest to devs) the monoaural option for sound, I'd be deeply grateful.

The other thing is maybe better standards or characterization for subtitles. Right now I'm playing Torchlight 3, and even with the game page saying it has subtitles, there aren't, so I can not know what are saying the narrator or sound notes unless I use the earphones... and as I am not a native english-speaker, I have lost a lot of lore.

And by the way, there are a lot of games with flashy animations that look like the one that are feared by people with epilepsy; fortunately I don't have that condition, so the message is very annoying on some of them (in Audiosurf 1, for example), but I know it could be good for people with the diagnosis; I suggest the option to not to put the anoying advice on the forced initial screens, but in a user custom tag or something, this way affected people can evade and have precaution with the risky games, and people who hasn't the disease haven't to see that.

Anyways, thank you for your help with the current measures. Good luck.

I’d like to be able to see the battery level of my connected controller. I’m using a PS5 controller and would love to know how much charge it has so I know when to plug it in. Just a small nitpick!

-add color blindness modes to the color filter setting
-add mono/stereo audio toggle
-add a font option to change to OpenDyslexic
-Screen reader doesn't work for me. Make it work so a blind person can navigate through the menus and settings with only audio needed
-also, make the screen reader accessible to linux versions of games for voice synthesis like the proton voice files does for windows games. Games default to the linux version if the option is there, so it only makes sense.

Hello. Can you please add volume setting for notifications? It's not ideal to turn down the volume of Steam as a whole with trailers on store pages, etc.

Also, you messed up the FPS counter size... If you change it, at least give us the chance to keep the old format of it (now it's way too big, before was just perfect).

:

An option for mono audio would be invaluable!

I have a problem with colour perception. For me, the steam interface is very faded and dim, I would be glad for a setting that changes the colour of the entire steam shell to completely black for example, and make the text colour contrasting enough to make it readable. Even on this feedback page the text is not completely white, but in some shades of gray, so the text merges with the background. The additional text around the posts is almost unreadable. The same problem is with the colour palette for text in the steam library and the store. The most annoying thing is that Windows contrast themes solve this problem, but these settings don't apply to steam.

Also this is not related to any accessibility problem, but there is a mute function for social notifications in steam settings, but there is no mute option for achievements. Hearing the same sound for the hundredth time over the years might get on nerves. Would it be possible to add a mute function for steam achievements too?

Thank you

Originally posted by toms:

Please share any [...] suggestions for accessibility features you'd like to see.

Hi there, Toms, and I'd like to make 2 suggestions here, As you've invited the community to do.

For starters, I'm a disabled gamer, As a result of mobility limitations, I often use STT (speech-to-text) to communicate 80%+ of the text I submit online, incl. in games, (and even right now) as it's much faster than me typing the "traditional way"

STT software is rapidly advancing, and is an excellent aide to myself and many others.

However, As noted in my first issue that I would like to request some attention be brought to, it's not without its limitations.

One of the biggest & Honestly, probably the most annoying issue that I run into is the issue of various speech to text software competing for system resources with the steam overlay on Windows 11 which also plays into my second suggestion.

From the limited investigating I've done, it would appear that steam, in any form is not properly sharing, nor allocating the needed additional computational resources that various dictation software requires to properly dictate & render text across the platform, when utilized in text input fields generated on pages or GUI elements that are exclusively rendered via the steam overlay system.

There are various events that I've noticed occur but most prominently and notably to me on why I believe that this is an issue with resource competition between the STT software and the Steam overlay is that;

I've noticed after a certain amount of text is transcribed and dictated, text begins to be dictated as random gibberish with this symptomology typical of what would occur when the STT software attempts to transcribe text with "out of order byte ranges" in regards to what gets "pasted"/"dictated into an input field.

Additionally, every time text is dictated text is always dictated twice, once properly, and then again directly afterwards proceeding to again be "pasted" / "dictated"as partial gibberish.
(the latter events happen literally every single time text is dictated)

These events even happen with Windows 10 & 11 native OS STT software like the "simple" STT app that can be accessed by pressing [Win] + [H]

Additionally, this specific said software being a native Windows app shares the same "trusted installer" permissions group settings as Steam.exe and its containing folder(s) by default.

This means it can be ruled out that its simply a result of being denied/limited resource allocations by system OS UAC permissions policies & ergo I'm inclined to believe it is being led up to the steam client to allocate these required resources when requested by any STT Application.

Therefore, my first suggestion to you, would be, can you please investigate issues between the compatibility of speech to text software when utilizing this scene overlay, and any text input field generated by such?
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Suggestion 2.

As stated in the beginning, the first issue also plays into my second suggestion that I would really, really, really love attention be focused on.

The second suggestion is a much quicker and easier suggestion to implement and would serve as a solution To an issue that I'm sure doesn't affect just people with disabilities like myself, but many users, if not a majority of the users of the platform as a whole.
Also Implementation of the latter suggestion, could actually somewhat alleviate some of the burdens described in the first section.


The issue that I seek a suggestion for is that one. of the biggest burdens of dealing with the prior issues I described with speech to text is the constant need to go back and edit text that I've submitted via the speech to text software Such editing is a constant necessity for every dictated message due to my issues described earlier, and this is heavily burdened by the fact that:

The steam chat window;
(when sending direct messages to users via any steam chat window in any version of the client)
Is limited to a maximum of only two lines of text being rendered at at any given time in the text input field for the text editor as seen in this example image I linked a URL to just below:
https://i.gyazo.com/c9bb4823bec6c384dd17adf6cdbda2b9.jpg

My 2nd suggestion to you is, can you please please for the love of all that is related to steam social communication, please increase the maximum number of lines that can be rendered when inputting text into text editor input field for sending steam chat messages.

I myself personally, and I'm sure many others find a need to constantly go back and edit text prior to sending a message, especially when sending longer messages, or copying and pasting messages that lose their formatting upon paste.

I cannot express how frustrating honestly, how really frustrating it is for me to go back and edit text.

I even find difficulty when doing basic things like trying to copy text that I've already written, for example;

I'm forced to and navigate the text editor with a combo of the [CTRL] & [Arrow] keys, and use other keys secondary functions like [SHIFT] in combo with the [arrow] keys to highlight text to be copied
— Because doing so with the mouse when working with a text field of two lines rendered maximum is impossible to do precisely, if at all.

(Literally, I'm not exaggerating, its impossible to be precise, try it for yourself go ahead, try to highlight a specific line of text navigating vertically with your mouse in a "chat message" with 3 or more lines of text & You will see it's not so easy to be precise.)

It doesn't sound like such a big deal I know..
However, it really, really, breaks the rapid workflow of using things like using speech to text, for the purpose of not having to utilize a keyboard in my case at-least,
or in the case of everyone, simply navigating and editing text in general.


Lastly, To finish off here, I just want to state that the second issue i described is honestly personally my biggest Impediment when it comes to social communication, of course, of platform, and I really really hope to see such area expanded on for improvement Out of all of the issues I face across the ENTIRE platform at the moment.


Toms, if you actually read all of this to the end, I praise you seriously, I know its a lot..
Therefore I hope that you understand that I spent a good amount of time dictating this message, STT or not, it still took me a good 1 hour+ or so to dictate, (& edit) all of this out.
So I really hope that you take this message seriously. 🥺
I hope to see these areas improved upon in the future.



P.S. Sorry for any literary errors, like I said, I'm using speech to text here, haha.


—Kryptlock